


the soldier

by iamafishstik



Series: Лед и Сталь | Ice and Steel [2]
Category: Black Widow (Movie 2020), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Awkward Romance, BAMF Natasha Romanov, BAMF Women, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Hurt Tony Stark, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Original Character(s), Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Protective Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Smut, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:01:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 60,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24211024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamafishstik/pseuds/iamafishstik
Summary: The Soldier and his Ghost are not finished running. The ones chasing them are gaining on the peace they have created, and for better or for worse they must face their past. The secrets there may destroy them all.Together they stand, divided they fall.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Original Female Character(s), James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers & Original Female Character(s), James "Bucky" Barnes/Original Female Character(s), Natasha Romanov & Original Female Character(s), Sam Wilson (Marvel) & Original Female Character(s), Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov & Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers & Original Female Character(s)
Series: Лед и Сталь | Ice and Steel [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1747474
Comments: 123
Kudos: 134





	1. Prologue: HUNT

_**Prologue: HUNT** _

* * *

The ripples of the Sokovian conflict spread further and deeper than she had thought. Clearly, the media weren’t interested in the lives left behind; it had always been easier to glamourize the memoriam of those who died, of those who made a sacrifice. The displaced are forgotten.

Her hunt had taken her to the border of Slovakia, and she’d been forced through the broken country of Sokovia on her way. Even now, a few months after the fight, the earth still smouldered, cracks widened, people wept and bled. The clean-up seemed to have been just as brutal, the teams of foreigners pouring into Sokovia forcing the people out to make way for their ‘good-deeds’. She had walked the exodus of the Sokovian public, had travelled the craggy roads to the border crossing, had slept and ate alongside them for a time.

There was a distant terror in the eyes of the people who had settled – albeit temporarily – in the aid-camps at the Slovakian border. She wondered if their saviours knew what they had left behind.

She couldn’t stay with them long. She had a mission of her own, and it would be conducted in the shadows that had been left to linger.

* * *


	2. Návojná, Czech Republic, 2015

**5 th July 2015**

**Návojná, Zlín Region, Czech Republic**

* * *

“You were out last night.”

She made sure to keep loose, to keep her hands steady on the small whetstone in her grip, methodically drawing her blade across its surface once before she looked up with a small smile. It was calculated, perhaps, but she knew her partner liked to see emotion on her face, and smiling was the easiest way to communicate truth. “I was. I am surprised you noticed, you seemed so deeply asleep.”

James Buchanan Barnes, The Winter Soldier, her partner of more than 65 years, the man to which she was indebted in every single way, raised an eyebrow at her from his stance in the doorway to their small cottage’s living room. “And…?” he folded his arms across his chest, metal arm glinting in the morning sun. The light was clean and clear here, where air pollution was a thing of myth, and the stars shone as bright as the moon at night, and the rolling greens of the hills around them seemed to be a barrier from the world.

“ _And_ I will be out today and tonight too.” She said simply, meeting his eyes with no hesitation.

Her partner looked unhappy, and he dropped his poise to lope over to her, dropping into the wicker chair opposite her with a huff. “I thought you wanted to settle here. I thought you wanted to live in a quiet town.”

Deception was one thing, but to see him hurt was another, and she set aside her knife and stone, leaning towards him. “I did, and I do. Though we can’t stay here forever, I like it.” _She did like the anonymity, though the proximity to the borders of the EU was just as helpful. _

“We could.” He said quietly, eyes flickering to the floor.

She frowned, “Could what?”

“Stay here forever.” He said, looking up and meeting her gaze with a now familiar intensity that made her cheeks warm reflexively. “We could, if you wanted.” He rose from his chair to crouch before her in one liquid movement, capturing her free hands in his. “We could integrate, we could really _live_ here. The people here are kind, and we wouldn’t be strangers for long. Что ты говоришь?” **_What do you say?_**

She searched his face. His earnestness was so clearly written, his eyes unshadowed and bright, and she thought him to be beautiful in his emotion. Gently, she extracted her hands from his grip, but before his face could fall entirely, she took him by the chin and kissed him.

The shivery warmth that she knew to be delight was still as heady a feeling as it had been the first time they had connected in such a way. It made it difficult to pull away from him as he tried to deepen the kiss, holding him firmly by his chin, and sitting back, and watching as his eyes slowly opened in wonderment.

“I say we talk about it later.” She said quietly. He looked disappointed but let her go without a word as she stood and collected her gear. “I should be back for lunch tomorrow. We can make _guláš._ ” He shadowed her to their bedroom, watching silently as she dressed. She deliberately set down the knife and whetstone on her bedside table, smoothing down her blouse as she turned. His face was held in the deliberately unreadable expression he wore when he was displeased or thinking, and she could bet she knew which of the two he was expressing. “Do you want me to stay?”

It was unfair, perhaps cruel, to ask him such a question. She knew he was unwilling to ‘stifle’ her, as he had put it, wanting her to experience the world as she saw fit. She also knew that if he really knew where she was going, and what she was doing, he would want to go with her. She couldn’t risk it.

His face contorted in predictable guilt, and he shook his head. “No, no – go. Have… fun. Just…” his jaw worked, metal arm whirring faintly as his hands twitched, “пожалуйста, будь осторожен.” **_please be careful._**

This time, her smile was real, as her chest flooded with warmth. She reached for her blue peacoat, and then reached for him. He embraced her tightly. It was another new, and yet welcome change to their partnership. Now, after so long, they could express the way parting made them feel. She still felt the desperate clutches of worry when they were apart, but now, it was made a little easier by all this new… _stuff_.

_It was also made easier by her focus._

If she was successful, then perhaps the fear of parting could be eliminated forever.

She let him squeeze her for another moment longer, taking a quick look at the small watch on her wrist over his shoulder. If she didn’t leave soon, she would be delayed, and the man she had been hunting might slip away. Thankfully, he let her go.

“Увидимся завтра.” **_I will see you tomorrow._** She told him. He didn’t follow her from the bedroom, though when she turned to close the front gate after herself, she caught the edge of his silhouette in the kitchen window, watching, waiting.

She didn’t waste energy by slipping into the Grey, keeping her head bowed to the curious looks of the locals instead of inducing her invisibility. It would be a long twenty-four hours, and she needed to reserve her energy. Her target was unlikely to be unguarded, and without backup, she would be stretched thinner than she was used to.

The car she had begun renting when they had first settled was hidden behind an old stone wall that bracketed in one of the multitudes of farmland properties, just past the town’s centre and the church off the main road. The whole village was quaint and unassuming, and even though their arrival had been surprising, it was not their way to be nosy. It was one of the reasons she suspected the car and its contents had not been unveiled, and why their landlord didn’t seem to mind them paying rent without face-to-face contact.

Ghost picked her way delicately around the uneven stone, impatiently unbuttoning her coat as she went. Time was something she had once ignored; a lifetime spent under others’ rule meant time was not a luxury she could afford to have or consider. Now, it seemed every second was more precious than the last, and they slipped away from her faster than she would have liked.

She popped the boot, and tossed her coat over the back seats, reaching for the duffle bag containing her hunting gear. It had been difficult to amass the gear she had inside; both her and her partner were still ingrained with the need to carefully stockpile and stock-take weaponry and ammunition, and as such, she had to be careful about taking too much. She was lucky, perhaps, that her methods didn’t require so many bullets.

She slipped off her shirt and shoes without modesty, slipping into the black shirt and supportive boots she usually wore on her trips. The jacket with the hood served to hide her distinctive hair, and she tied her face mask loosely around her neck to draw up over her face later. Her utility belt was heavier than she would have liked, but she needed it until she could find a way to strap her knives to her torso and thighs as she preferred, and now she carried a gun more, she needed a holster for it, as it was unwieldy to carry her weapons in her small backpack.

Ghost slammed the boot shut, and phased through the car, until she was sat in the driver’s seat, materialising to turn the keys already dangling in the ignition. In the passenger’s seat, her files were open to the man she was after, his image staring coldly at the roof of the car, unknowing of the fate awaiting him, and everyone he kept company.

* * *

Jakub Kovac was, on the outside, a simple Slovak businessman who just happened to deal with some of the most dangerous men in the Visegrád Group. His spiderweb of connection and dealings extended into the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and up until recently, Sokovia, wherein he’d been responsible for shipment of arms and goods to a certain unnamed corporation located in a certain unmarked station just outside the capital of Sokovia.

Had it not been for extensive media coverage of the events leading up to Ultron’s attack upon Sokovia, she might not have named Kovac as one of her main targets. He was, undoubtedly, HYDRA affiliated, and despite global attempts at quashing the organization, Kovac Inc. was still shipping across the EU, and his name had not appeared in any papers or legal documentation she could trace.

If he was not HYDRA, then he knew where they were.

Ghost did not comfort herself with falsities. She did not pretend to revel in the apparently triumph over HYDRA. Their exposure had not been their downfall, and like roaches, they were surviving, scrabbling and filthy, clinging to life. Whilst HYDRA still survived, she and her partner were not safe, and neither were the people that had exposed them.

Steve Rogers, Natalia and their associate Sam Wilson, may not have been concerned with the underbelly of humanity now, perhaps more concerned with larger seeming disasters, such as the one they had thwarted in May. With their heads turned to the sky, they couldn’t see the target pinned to their backs. HYDRA, particularly the European divisions, were not known for mercy, nor were they known for forgiveness for transgression. HYDRA had been built on pride and power. Injured and removed of both, it became personal, and Ghost was willing to bet that somewhere, a list of people HYDRA wished eliminated was headed with their names and faces.

She could not let them be harmed.

Sam Wilson was precious to Steve Rogers, who was precious to her partner – and she knew that the loss would cripple something in her partner. He had slowly been remembering, his little book long since filled, another half-way finished already. Her own selfish desire to keep Natalia safe was much easier to understand. The longing she felt for the girl had been, initially, hard to understand. Afterall, all they had been was student and teacher, outwardly, at least. With time, she’d come to realise the fondness she had had for the girl had been returned, and though guilt was undoubtedly responsible for some of the obligation she felt for Natalia, she had a _connection_ to her, one that seemed to be as meaningful as the one she had shared – albeit briefly – with Daisy, the girl from the coffee shop.

Daisy Lee, born Daisy Ray Lebedev, was also someone Ghost felt she owed. Kindness had always seemed to be something so impossible, made even more so after her escape due to the very nature of her being. Daisy had shown her kindness and friendship before she had known what it was, and despite the briefness of their time together, Ghost still treasured the small pocket of memory Daisy occupied.

She had been pondering how best to repay the girl, both for her friendship, but for the damage she had caused to her livelihood. She and her partner were living gingerly, with just enough money to keep afloat, and so she needed to find a way to get Daisy money inconspicuously, and enough to make a difference.

Ghost had a long list of things to do. It was good then, that she was patient.


	3. Senica, Slovakia, 2015

**5 th July, 2015**

**Senica, Slovakia**

* * *

Kovac Inc. took up a grand portion of the international shipping yard east of Senica, one of the major border cities to Sokovia, but it wasn’t where Ghost was planning to hit.

Most recently, Kovac had been making headlines due to his involvement at the border, mostly, for sponsoring the aid-camps for the Sokovian immigrants. Pictures of him posing with unsmiling Sokovian refugees, and holding orphaned children, were all that seemed to be featured on local and national news. His company owned several of the properties in Senica, and she was willing to bet she’d find him, and the documentation she needed somewhere within the small empire he had built.

She made it to the outskirts of Senica as night fell, the emergency spotlights of the camps visible through the trees ahead. She drove carefully for a little longer, spotting a dense copse of trees just off-road where she could store the car. It was cold enough for even her breath to fog, and she drew up her mask with no small relief, tugging on a pair of fingerless gloves which did little to stay the chill that settled on her skin. She started towards the camp on foot, unwilling to draw attention to herself.

There were cooking fires going, and the smell of rations reminded her she’d forgotten to eat again. Years of living intravenously meant forming habits around bodily functions and need were hard to form. The sharp bite of hunger in her gut was easy to ignore, however, as she was also used to years of feeling it. She reached the first ring of shelters without incident, and fell in behind a pair of women walking in the direction of Senica, bowing her head as three humanitarian-aid workers hurried past, uniformed in dark green shirts and pants. Ahead, where the spotlights were the brightest, where the main road began again, she could pick out men milling around who were neither refugees nor aid workers. These men were large, built by years of training, with military posture and formation still visible in their ‘casual’ stance.

To her left, the trees fell away to reveal the small mountainous range that marked the border between Sokovia and Slovakia, and even now, she could make out headlights on the roads that connected the two countries, no doubt bringing across more of the displaced.

Pretending to pause and admire the view, she counted the men. They were standing in front of a temporary shelter, three of them lounging on and around the steps, and another two lurking further in the shadows, beside what looked to be a large, black car. _So Kovac was here_. There was no other reason for an armoured transport and so many guards elsewise.

Maybe she’d be back sooner than she had expected. Finding Kovac so soon meant that she would save time tracking him down. Now, she just had to be patient. She had no desire to subject the people here to any more pain and suffering.

She turned, and headed for the gap between two tents, ducking down and disappearing into the Grey.

* * *

Kovac may have been a part sponsor of the relief effort, but by the décor in his office building, she suspected he could afford to put all the refugees up in hotels, and not feel the dent in his pocketbook.

It made anger burn low in her chest.

The money this man had was blood money. It was money made by sin, to sin. It was opulence for opulence’s sake, and she thought of the many lives destroyed by the man sitting at the desk in front of her and stewed.

They’d been alone for the better part of an hour; Kovac had gotten straight out of his vehicle and ridden his unnecessary elevator up to the top floor of his three story office building, and had been working through a large stack of paperwork without pause. He was a bad man, but she could admire his work ethic if nothing else. She watched him, reading his writing upside down. He seemed to be signing things, adding his signature to papers marked for it, but when he pulled a document in English towards him, she moved to see it.

From what she could tell, the other documents had been related to his trade in the EU – this, however, was an American document, as made evident by the spelling of ‘Center’ on the first page. She stepped around the desk, and leant over his shoulder, careful to watch the two dangling cords of her hoodie as she scanned the writing in front of her. In the Grey, things were a little harder to focus on, but the words on the page were clear.

It was a missive, sent by an anonymous party – a print out of an encoded fax, as evidenced by the handwritten note in Slovakian by Kovac’s secretary – calling for recruits. She read on. The author of the paper had not signed a name, but on the bottom of the page, a series of binary numbers stood out to her.

It was HYDRA code, and whoever had sent it was looking to form a team of some kind, international and blacklisted recruits encouraged to report back through the channel the fax had come from. It was almost archaic methodology, but clearly effective, as it appeared this message had not been picked up on any official channels. The author was smart, and undoubtedly ruthless.

She watched, still as stone, as Kovac began to write a letter of recommendation, naming a few men she recognized as being upon her list of potential HYDRA members. It was enough to convince her. Kovac _was_ HYDRA, and his willingness to continue to support the cause had just sealed his fate. She stepped back a pace so that she wasn’t looming over him, and left the Grey.

It took him a moment to register her presence; she could see when he caught sight of her reflection in the polished bronze paperweight beside his desk lamp. He jumped up and whirled to face her, papers going flying, chair falling to the side as he opened his mouth to scream. She was already in motion. The sharp jab to his throat made him gasp and choke, his cry for help dying before it began. He clutched at his neck, eyes bulging as he tried to draw breath, and she kicked his legs out from under him, hearing the faint squelch of his kneecap dislocating. He collapsed with a whimper, and she crouched before him, rolling him over roughly so he was able to see her face.

His face was screwed up in pain, but when she pulled back her hood and bandana, his eyes widened near comically, wheezing as he tried to articulate frenzied speech. The recognition was clear, and she waited until his surprise turned into fear.

“Áno. Som tým, koho si myslíte.” **_Yes. I am who you think I am._** She said calmly. He made another noise that might have been her title, and she held a silencing finger to his lips. “V tomto svetle sa dostaňme priamo k časti vašej spolupráce.” **_And in that light, let us get straight to the part of your cooperation._**

His face darkened, and he made a move towards his desk, attempting to right himself. She fisted her gloved hand in his short hair, catching more of his skin than anything, and bringing his head down sharply onto the floor. The resulting thud dulled Kovac’s eyes, and she sighed. “HYDRA ma možno dobre vycvičila, ale v ich neprítomnosti moja trpezlivosť mizne.” **_HYDRA may have trained me well, but in their absence, my patience wanes._** Blinking hard, the man affixed her with a filthy glower.

“Seru na teba, suka, smrdíš zo zvierat - neurobíš to odtiaľto živým, budem-” **_Fuck you, bitch, you stinking animal - you won't make it out of here alive, I will-_** His croaking rant was cut off again by another sharp blow to his throat.

“Nepotrebujem ťa nažive, Kovac. Dajte mi, čo chcem, a môžem vás ušetriť.” **_I do not need you alive, Kovac. Give me what I want and I may spare you._** She reached for a blade on her belt, briefly testing the keenness of the blade, before she jammed it straight through Kovac’s hand and into the carpeted floor below. His strangled cry was loud enough to make her still, slapping a firm hand over his mouth to stifle any other sounds as he squirmed underneath her.

There was no movement from the other side of the door, and she relaxed. Kovac must have had his office soundproofed. She was willing to bet he was regretting the choice. she stood, leaving Kovac on the floor as she pulled his desk chair up and sat down. “I need your list of HYDRA contacts. Any one you sell to, anyone you buy off – your whole supply chain, and any rats associated with you.” She said idly. “You’re the first on my list, and it would make my life easier if you cooperated.” She swivelled in the chair to eye him. “You want to make my life easier, don’t you, Jakub?” He nodded faintly, face paling as she leant a little towards him. She smiled, slow and predatory. “Excellent. Will I find a list here?”

He shook his head, and she sighed. “Very well. I suppose we’ll have to go get it, then, won’t we?” she began to gather the scattered papers on his desk anyway, ignoring his occasional whimpers as she began to sweep his office, taking her time at his large filing cabinet. He appeared to be telling the truth; whilst there were plenty of contracts, receipts and general correspondence between Kovac and his customers and stakeholders, there weren’t as many names as she would have liked, and it was hard to tell which of the contracts were HYDRA related, and which were simply shady business.

She collected everything of interest to herself, and piled the rest atop his desk, and rooted through her backpack for her lighter. Kovac let out a small noise as the first flames appeared, licking greedily at the easy fuel she had provided. Satisfied, she gathered her things before turning back to him, and yanking the blade out of his hand. She waved it in his face. “Ak spustíte alarm, nájde sa iný domov. Vstať.” **_This will find another home if you raise an alarm. Get up._**

Though he whined and shook as he stood on his busted knee, her threat seemed to have worked, and as he limped his way towards the door, the carpet began to catch fire behind them. Just as he opened his office door, she phased out of sight, shadowing him tightly so that he could feel the press of her invisible blade against his back. He was smart, quick to close his office door behind them as the guard stationed in the hallway jerked up at his approach. “Pán Kovac, pane.” **_Mr. Kovac, sir._** He said, bowing his head slightly, the large machine gun slung across his body jerking with his movement.

Kovac waved his hand dismissively. From her position directly over his shoulder, she could see the fat beads of sweat rolling down the man’s neck. “Získajte auto. Musím ísť do skladu.” **_Get the car. I need to go to the warehouse._**

“Áno, pane.” **_Yes, sir._** The guard nodded, and turned to hurry before them, pressing the button of the elevator before heading for the staircase beside the elevator doors. Ghost couldn’t help but be suddenly glad for the elevator. Kovac – for all the wanton pain and destruction he had no issue dealing out – seemed to be unable to handle the pain of his knee, and she didn’t want to have to carry him down to the garage. Kovac stumbled into the elevator, leaning heavily into the wall and panting.

“I cannot go on…” he said in heavily accented English, eyes searching the reflective metal of the elevator doors for her, as he buckled to clutch dramatically at his knee. “please… have mercy.”

She stayed invisible. “Vieš koľko životov si si vzal?” **_Do you know how many lives you have taken?_** she asked him, watching as he flinched at her disembodied voice, pressing the knife a little harder into his back, and making him freeze.

“Nikoho som nezabil!” **_I haven't killed anyone!_** He spat, straightening slowly.

She shook her head. “Maybe not with a gun in your grip, but there are bodies in the earth because of _you_. Because of HYDRA. Sokovia alone puts so much blood on your hands you should be drowning in it. I have no mercy for you, Jakub. I have no mercy for HYDRA.”

There was silence then, broken only by Kovac’s faint panting and the dull jingle of the elevator’s music. When the elevator doors opened, it was to find Kovac’s armoured transport awaiting, engine purring and with two guardsmen waiting to assist him into the back seat. She was forced to phase out of being entirely as they took the seats beside their boss, and perched uncomfortably on the divider between driver and the passenger’s seat.

They made their way out of the main township again, moving past the refugee camps, and towards the shipyard she had initially ignored in her research. She tried not to grow too annoyed with her assessment; it was unlikely she would have found what she was looking for without Kovac, and there was a certain satisfaction in capturing him anyway. Besides, there was the new matter of the encoded American transmission. She filed away the errant thoughts in favour of regarding the present with clarity. She was better than regret; on a mission, there wasn’t time to analyse past mistakes, and distraction could cost everything.

The car began to slow as they approached the gate of Kovac Inc.’s shipping yard, and it didn’t take long for the gate to be opened for them. It didn’t take them long to come to a stop in front of a large blue shipping container, and even through the snow that had accumulated across the whole yard, she could still see that this container showed signs of age that the others did not have, that there were bolts in the block of cement it rested on. This was no ordinary container.

The driver got out first, moving around to open the doors for the passengers, and Ghost filed out with them, quick to shift back into her position behind Kovac, leaning forwards to whisper in his ear; “Sám.” **_Alone._**

“Počkaj tu. Na chvíľu sa vrátim.” **_Wait here. I will return momentarily_**. Kovac announced with a surprising amount of strength to his voice. He even had the gall to hold his head high as he limped towards the storage container. The door itself was padlocked, and she eyed the keyhole curiously. Kovac didn’t produce a key, instead pressing his thumb to the flat of the padlock. The faint chirping of a machinal acceptance lit up the key hole in green, and as the padlock opened, she could see the disguised biometric pad where his thumbprint had heated the metal. He opened the door, and she moved inside with him.

“Close the door.” She told him, and waited until he had reluctantly done so before she reappeared, still invisible to Kovac in the darkness of the container. He fumbled for the lights for a moment, and let out a sound of surprise as he registered her again as a line of LED lights in the ceiling lit the space.

“It is there.” He said, pointing over her shoulder, and she turned to look at the pedestal in the centre of the space. It was empty save for a single hard drive no bigger than her hand. “Now – I give you what you want. Now, you say, I live-”

She held up a hand, turning to quell his nervous speech with a killing look. “This is it? Everything?”

He nodded. “HYDRA nemá rád netesnosti.” **_HYDRA doesn’t like leaks._** She tilted her head, watching his manufactured earnestness with dull interest. “Môžete si byť istí, že nikomu nepoviem, čo sa stalo, pretože by to znamenalo-” **_You can be assured I will not tell anyone what transpired, because it would mean-_**

“Je zaujímavé, že si myslíte, že ma zaujíma, či HYDRA vie o mojich plánoch.” **_It is interesting, that you think I care if HYDRA knows about my plans._** She turned, and headed towards the hard drive, picking it up and slipping it into her backpack. Kovac was watching her, and when she took a slow deliberate step back towards him, a terrified realisation spread across his face. “HYDRA likes to feel powerful. HYDRA is used to being the predator. I’m simply turning the tables.” Kovac turned them, and bolted for the door. She moved after him with no desperation. He wouldn’t escape her, couldn’t get far enough away to matter.

She raised her gun, and fired a shot at him as he pulled open the door, his silhouette outlined as a perfect target. She was not her partner, not gifted with his brilliant eye and aim, but she wasn’t unfamiliar with her weapon, and it was a clean shot, and he crumpled – dead before he hit the ground.

The sudden chaos outside didn’t worry her, and she phased into the Grey as machine gun fire opened on the shipping container. She exited, invisible and intangible, and walking deliberately towards the men trying to avenge a man they only valued for his pocketbook. She dispatched them quickly and cleanly, leaving the three men bleeding into the pure white of the snow, and headed towards the armoured transport.

_One name crossed off her list. She had only just begun._


	4. Návojná, Czech Republic, 2015

**13 th July, 2015**

**Návojná, Zlín Region, Czech Republic**

* * *

He tried not to make it too obvious he was staring, but unable to help himself as his partner stretched on the blanket beside him, the pale blue sweater she was wearing riding up and revealing a few inches of her torso.

She met his gaze anyway, and he was too slow to avert his eyes, as she rolled over towards him. She looked soft, pliant, set against the vibrant backdrop of the landscape around, the vivid green of the grass, and the bright blue of the sky, illuminating the pearl to her skin. There was a time where they’d turn away from each other, old conditioning still raising the impulse to sever the connection of even an innocent look. Soviet HYDRA cells had drilled in a distinct rule against _sentiment_ , and whilst their time with the American cells, and indeed their new freedom, had softened the old regime – sometimes he had to remind himself that he _could_ , in fact, look at her and smile, and reach for her without rebuke. 

He wondered idly if she felt the same, if that was the reason for her defiant stare back. She was the first to look away, though, as she sat up to reach for the blackberries in the small clay bowl he’d bought especially for her. The tips of her finger and the centre of her lips were already stained a ruddy purple. He wanted to see if she tasted like berries too, but was hesitant to see. They hadn’t moved far past kissing, and he didn’t want to push her. Not during this strange period of flighty secrecy she was going through.

It was frustrating him, her silence. She refused to mention what she spent her time doing, and he’d tried every technique he could think of to make her drop even a hint, but she knew him too well and had been taught just the same tactics.

“Mm,” she hummed, the gentle sound of contentment. “These are good.”

He smiled at her, despite his internal thoughts. “I’m glad. We should go and pick some ourselves.”

Her pale eyebrows jumped, “you can do that?”

“Yeah, the man selling them said if you pick your own fruit, you get a discount.” He said, watching her speculative look down the hill to the valley and village below. “Are you happy?” he asked, blurted, mouth moving faster than his mind.

She frowned, turning to search his face. “Why would I not be?”

“I don’t know.” He said honestly, and she shifted, sliding towards him across the blanket they’d spread out, avoiding the discarded dishes, until she was directly in front of him. Gently, her hands came up to cup his cheeks, and he let her hold him, let her tilt his head up until the sun was on his face and he had to close his eyes to the glare.

“Do you miss him?” she asked suddenly, quietly, and she had moved so close he could feel her cool breath on his lips. He swallowed, throat suddenly tight. He had no ready answer to give her.

Simply, _yes._ Yes, he missed Steve, he missed the man he had once known, he missed his old friend. But it was more complicated than that. He didn’t have the _right_ to miss him, not really. Not after all he had done. He was changed, and so was Steve. The boys they had been didn’t exist anymore, and whilst he sought to reconnect with the man that meant so much to him, he didn’t see how they could. He was dripping in sin, and Steve would not, and could not forgive him.

“I can’t.” he whispered to her, to the sun. “He can’t… he won’t-”

“But if he did?” She interrupted him, voice like silk, like steel – somehow soft and hard at once. “If he wanted you back, if you could go back, you would?” it sounded like a rhetoric, and he wondered when he’d become so easy to read, or if they had finally reached the point of their partnership where they could sense each other’s thoughts.

He answered her anyway. “Not without you.” He said firmly, and tried to open his eyes to look at her, to reassure her, but she held him steady, and he couldn’t make out her face through the sunlight.

“I know.” She said finally, and he blinked. “I know.” It was almost as if she was talking to herself as she let him go and stood. “Forgiveness.” She murmured, turning to look back at the town again. “Как я могу это заработать?” **_How can I earn it?_**

“What?” He frowned at her, and her answering smile was brilliant and entirely false. _She still took his breath away._

“Nothing.” She said peacefully. There was something like resolution in her eyes, and he wasn’t sure whether or not to be worried. 

* * *

**31 st August 2015**

**New Avengers Facility, New York.**

* * *

“Good god, woman – what the hell is all this?”

Natasha turned at Sam’s loud entrance, mustering a smile for him. Her friend was staring, a little bug-eyed, at the vast array of paperwork she’d spread around her room.

“I think better on paper.” She said, quirking a brow. “Don’t make me regret inviting you in, Wilson.”

Sam held up his hands in surrender. “Hell naw, I was beyond honoured to be let into the lair, I won’t mess this up. How can I help, Nat?” At his genuine offer, she let her poise crack a little, and nibbled uncomfortably on her bottom lip as she turned to regard the sprawl herself. Moving into the larger facility had meant more room for her, and she’d kind of gotten carried away with research… but admitting you had a problem was the first step to recovery, and Natasha had a problem.

The mess left in Ultron’s wake had been hard to recover from. Paranoia meant that she’d moved everything she could salvage from her online work to hardcopy, and in the process, she’d bitten off more than she could chew. The current state of her room was a result of her attempt at sorting through everything. “I need a second pair of hands and eyes. I need to reorganize my intel.”

“Hey, my first real job was a filing assistant.” Sam said cheerfully, and Natasha couldn’t help the spike of warmth at his blind optimism. He was a good man. One of the best she knew. “Nothin’ like getting back to my roots. Where do we start?”

“I need to find the latest shit I printed. I’ve been looking into some suspicious activity in the EU, some bodies in Slovakia and Belarus.” She dropped to her knees above a pile of Chinese documents that had turned out to be a bust – it had been old stuff, old mission reports from a few trips Aleksandrina and Barnes had undertaken in the 70s and 80s – nothing relevant to her hunt now. She looked up at Sam’s lack of response.

He was frowning at her. “You’re still looking for them.” it wasn’t a question, but there was a note of curiosity in his voice she hadn’t expected. “Steve said-”

“I know what Steve said. I told him I stopped because it was easier than watching that hopeful look die every single time I came up empty.” Natasha pursed her lips, slamming a pile of manila folders down with a little more force than necessary. “It’s unlikely I _will_ find them, but I didn’t want to keep stringing him along in the meantime.”

Sam was quiet, and when she looked at him again, his eyes were thoughtful. “That’s why you asked me to do this, huh.” He met her gaze steadily, still with that undeniable warmth he emanated. “I get it.”

“I knew you would.” Natasha tried to convey her relief at his acceptance. “I won’t ask you to lie to him, but-”

“I get it.” Sam repeated, nodding to himself, and squinting at an old Russian newspaper. “You’ve really done your digging.”

Natasha wavered for a moment. “Sam?”

“Yeah?” he looked at her again, another friendly smile.

“I know her.” She admitted, a little heady at getting the revelation off her chest.

Sam snorted. “I kinda got that from the whole exchange in DC.” Natasha shook her head impatiently.

“No, I really _know_ her. She taught me everything I know, she _made_ me, and she’s-” She swallowed, brushing her hand over the files in front of her, over the thick redactions, secrets yet to be uncovered, questions yet to be answered. “Sam, she’s my aunt. Great-aunt, technically.”

“Damn.” Sam sounded disappointed, and she looked at him as he shook his head. Old worry, old fears of rejection swirled within her even as she tramped them down. Her family’s discretions were nothing to be ashamed of, Aleksandrina hadn’t even known what she was doing- “I _knew_ she looked familiar.” He narrowed his eyes at her, a smile growing across his face as he rooted around the papers for something. He picked up a small picture, worn and faded – it was a picture of Aleksandrina taken when she had first entered into the Academy, the only record Natasha had found of her _actually_ being there. He held it up to his eyeline, looking between the picture and her. “You look just like her. But like, not half-starved and… weirdly pale.” He said, and cocked his head. “Actually, she has a different nose. That’s about it though. Huh.”

“You’re not…” Natasha couldn’t quite emulate the expression for what she thought Sam would feel, would do. “Angry?” she tried. “I would be. If you kept something like this from me.”

Sam shrugged. “Barnes means everything to Steve. Family means everything to you.” He went back to his sorting. “I get it.”

Natasha hid her smile in a box of old tapes. “Yeah. I should have known you would.”

Sam gave her an easy grin, before they went back to their work in comfortable silence. They worked for a while longer, Natasha getting up briefly to get them both coffee, Sam scolding her for her triple shot latte. She was just about ready to call it quits for the day; she was getting a head ache, and it felt as though all they’d manage to do was move piles around – when Sam let out a cry of triumph.

Natasha headed over to him, and he handed her the paper; it was all in Slovak, though her print date was emboldened on the top. This was it. It was a series of autopsy reports from Slovakia, listing the deaths of a tycoon and some of his body guards. It had caught her eye because the police had not ruled the deaths as suspicious despite the circumstances and the injuries themselves. It appeared that a representative lawyer of the businessman’s company had stepped in and prevented the police from investigating further. Either the company – in ruins, from what her quick background had shown – hadn’t thought the CEO’s death warranted investigation, or they were afraid what the police might find if they dug into victimology.

“What is it?” Sam was scanning the document over her shoulder, eyes narrowed as if squinting might translate the words on the page.

“It’s an autopsy.” She told him, flipping over to the next page. “Some rich guy who does imports and exports in the Balkan States and Visegrád Group. He and a bunch of his guards got shot up by an unknown, a bunch of his assets went missing, and most of his estate went up in smoke. Literally.” She snorted to herself. “I mean he was a scumbag, but I can’t figure out how he made all of his cash with _just_ his semi-shady shipping. He must have been dealing under the table somehow.”

Sam hummed. “And what, you think Barnes and Romanov had something do with it?” A faint thrill went through Natasha at Sam’s casual usage of Aleksandrina’s name. _Her_ name.

She ignored it. “I think so. I mean, I’m unsure about Barnes’ involvement – he tends to prefer a more targeted approach. But I’ve seen Romanov in action – and her M.O. is… different. To have no sightings, no suspects – nothing at all – that’s something only she could do.”

“But where one is, we’ll find the other.” Sam nodded to himself, giving the report one last confused look.

Natasha closed the folder. “That’s what I figured.”

“So, what are you going to do? Are you going to go to Slovakia?” Sam asked, stepping back as she began to shunt everything into the centre of the room, clearing off her bed and floor.

Natasha straightened, reaching to collect their empty mugs. “By the time I got there, they’d be long gone. I’m better off watching patterns. If I can figure out why or who they are- _she is_ killing, then I’m thinking I can cut them off.”

“Smart.” Sam said sagely, accompanying her to door and waiting in the hall as she switched off her lights and locked her door. She threw him a wink over her shoulder.

“I have my moments.”

* * *

**1 st September 2015**

**Downtown, Washington D.C.**

* * *

_It doesn't hurt me_

_Do you want to feel how it feels?_

_Do you want to know, know that it doesn't hurt me?_

_Do you want to hear about the deal that I'm making?_

_You, it's you and me…_

The small woman shoving her way through the D.C. commuters mouthed the lyrics along with Kate Bush’s warble unashamedly. A passing man in a grey suit gave her an obvious up-and-down, his eyes fixing first on her moving mouth, then going to her shock of green hair, then to the edge of her tattoo showing above the sleeve of her sweater where the material had bunched up. Whatever conclusion he reached was clearly somewhere between disgust and disdain, and he turned his nose up at her obviously. She resisted the urge to flip him off or poke out her tongue.

It wouldn’t really help to act childish. People stared enough as it was.

She ducked down the next side street, taking the short cut she always took to work. Usually she’d be walking a little faster, usually she’d be at work already – but business had been sparce lately. And by lately, she meant every day the windows of her café remained boarded up. She hadn’t been able to repair the damage done to her shop when it had happened, and now, after months and months of declining business she was barely able to afford rent – let alone replace the glass and fill in the bullet holes in her walls.

Daisy-Rae Lebedev could still not bring herself to resent the woman that had brought so much trouble to her doorstep.

When she’d met Lily – Ghost, she had to keep reminding herself – she hadn’t recognised the danger that others had claimed in her. No, Daisy had just seen another lonely face, had seen a _very_ familiar ache for acceptance, and had tried to help as best she could. Honestly, Daisy had been wondering if the other woman had been a runaway mail-order bride. Her grandma had been one. She’d been sent for by her intended husband, travelled all the way from Russia to America by herself, and then had run off – run straight into Daisy’s grandfather’s arms.

Still. She hadn’t seen the danger. Until it was unfolding right in front of her.

And even then, Daisy hadn’t given the other woman and her companion away. Couldn’t bare too. Even after all the stuff on the news, after the countless charges laid against them, Daisy couldn’t bring herself to crush the two people who had looked so broken already. So, she’d let them go. Hadn’t even called the police.

And so what if she’d suffered mild PTSD afterwards. At least she didn’t have a guilty conscience as well.

Daisy unlocked the café door, smiling humourlessly as she flipped the sign to open, despite it being practically invisible from the street. In the dark, she didn’t see the thick envelope sitting just inside the door, and as she made for the lights, she tripped over the corner of it, going sprawling across her hardwood floor.

She huffed, sitting up and gathering up her phone and headphones from where they’d gone flying out of her grip. Kate Bush was still coming tinnily from the little speakers, and she paused it impatiently. The sudden still silence she was plunged into made her hold her breath automatically. Slowly, she brushed herself off, ignoring the faint throb from her knees and elbows as she headed for the light switch.

The envelope was still sitting there, looking entirely innocent.

She bent to pick it up, distantly surprised at how heavy it was. There was no return address, just the café’s address and her first name, written in tidy, cramped handwriting. On the middle of the envelope, there was a US customs stamp, as well as a USPS stamp – but nothing else. She didn’t recognise the handwriting, and for a wild moment her thoughts went ‘ _A BOMB?’_ before she calmed down, reasoning customs and USPS wouldn’t have let a bomb be delivered.

She opened the envelope carefully. Inside was a plastic pocket, marked in foreign writing, but she could recognise the various symbols for currency printed over the blue plastic, and frowned as she pulled it out. Stapled to the front of the plastic packet, the kind of little bag you got at a currency exchange, was a receipt in the same unfamiliar language detailing what seemed to be a transaction turning euros into dollars.

Her heart started to beat a little faster.

With shaking hands, she tore open the thin plastic – and promptly dropped the packet. As the package fell, almost as if in slow motion, the crisp hundred dollar bills spilled into the air, and across the floor, thousands of dollars scattering around her.

Daisy stared with wide eyes.

Slowly, she reached for her phone in her back pocket, and sent a message to a number she hadn’t communicated with in months.

_Hey, it’s Daisy – I don’t know if you remember me, but you told me ages ago to let you know if anything suspicious happened to me. I just received a package and it’s definitely suspicious. Sorry if you’re busy or you don’t care. Haha. Sorry._

She sent the message before she could get too self-conscious.

With a faint buzz she only heard because it was so quiet, her phone went off.

_Of course, I remember you Daisy. Hang tight. I’ll be with you soon, I’m just in a meeting. – S_


	5. London, United Kingdom, 2015

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SMUT WARNING! 
> 
> (they finally get it on.)

**3 rd November, 2015**

**London, England, United Kingdom**

* * *

“A name.”

Laboured breathing broke its pattern to hiss in incoherent rage. “ _fuck you…_ ”

“Mr. Bateman.” Her voice was gently chiding, at odds with her swift punch to the bound man’s face. With a wet crack, blood spurted from the man’s nose, and he swore. “I thought you Tommies were polite.”

Ghost sat back down in her own chair. The old warehouse she’d captured her target in was one of many such dilapidated buildings lining the old shipyards along the banks of the Thames rarely seen by tourists. Like the walls, windows, floors and stairs, the roof was falling apart, and holes in the corrugated iron were letting patches of moonlight into the dingy space. It made for a dramatic setting, and Ghost had made sure to position her target right in the centre of one of the brightest spots. The old chairs she had found moldering in the basement had just been a spot of good luck.

Jasper Bateman had been difficult to catch.

The soldier-come-mercenary-come-assassin hadn’t given any indication to whether or not he had known he was being tracked by her, but when the time had come for his interrogation, the man had put up a good fight. Just not good enough.

She couldn’t deny she had felt some relief when he had finally been subdued – though amusing – his moniker ‘Slaymaster’ seemed to be relatively accurate. She was nursing several wounds still, and the bleeding had only just stopped from the stab wound he had put in her right thigh with one of his strange weapons she could only describe as weaponized knitting needles.

“Who is this message from?” She asked again, leaning slightly into the light so that she could shake a printout of an encoded transmission she had found sent to Bateman’s personal computer. The transmission itself had come from a German-English man she had tracked from one of Kovac’s contact lists, who had received it originally from a second source. The transmission was identical to the one she had found suspicious at Kovac’s office. The one from the American unknown, with an unfamiliar signature, and in HYDRA code. Bateman scowled, and spat blood at her. She scowled, leaning away from the splatter. “I will break a finger, and then remove it.” She told him. Her seriousness must have shown upon her face, because he paled.

“Stephen Wagner.” Bateman muttered finally, mutinous.

“No.” She shook her head. “Not him. Who is it _from?_ ”

Bateman growled wordlessly. “I just told you. _Wagner_ -”

Ghost pulled out her phone, silently unlocking it and showing him the screen. His eyes widened at the image of the body on the screen. Wagner had been helpful up until he had begun to proclaim both his vengeance and power, and she had found evidence of his involvement in child-trafficking whilst searching through his files. He hadn’t lived very long after that. She put her phone back in her pocket. “Would you like to try again? Whose signature is this?” she rustled the message again. “I know he’s American, I know he’s HYDRA, and I know he’s recruiting.” She scowled. “And I know you already sent a confirmation of interest. So, tell me _his name_.”

“No.” Bateman said.

“No?” Ghost felt a little hysterical, a laugh building and dying in her throat. “Do you not know who I am?”

Bateman actually had the gall to chuckle. “You’re one of HYDRA’s little experimental attack dogs. I’m not afraid of you or your freaky friends.”

“Friends?” She echoed faintly, as she stood. She had to retrieve her bag if she wanted to make him talk, but she was distracted by his odd phrasing. From her knowledge, the only two enhanced subjects that HYDRA had permitted into the field were her and her partner. No one knew about the others. The _other_ Winter Soldiers that had been lost to history.

For a moment, she was back in the training rooms, the scent of sweat and blood filling her nostrils, the dull fear she had felt as her partner had been forced to his knees-

_Her arm, broken and aching, kept her from doing much but watching. The brute that had shattered it was still engaging her partner. Colonel Karpov seemed uninterested, still writing furiously in his little red notebook. When her partner was thrown into the window, he looked up briefly. The whole room was dank with old mildew and the humid stench produced by hours and hours of human labour, the combat cage long unwashed._

_The sudden chaos that resulted seemed inevitable. She moved on autopilot, fingers locking around Karpov’s neck, as she forced him out of the cage. His fury seemed near comical, his disbelief in his failure humorous. Her partner and her exchanged a laughing look at his swollen red face, as the sour-sweet tang of knock-out gas began to fill the room._

She shook off the old memory. There was no way Bateman – or anyone else for that matter – knew about the Winter Soldier Program. So far as HYDRA history was concerned, there was only _one_ Winter Solider, and his Ghost. _So who did Bateman mean?_

“Yes… you and your little friends.” He cackled. She almost winced at the cliché. “Unless – you don’t know about the Witch and her brother. Oh no – you mustn’t. _That_ little concoction of madness was devised out of your jurisdiction. Out of most people’s jurisdiction, so I’ve heard,” She, personally, had heard enough. She phased out of sight, Bateman’s babble fading to a distant murmur. “Though the Avengers picked them up, I’m sure they’re just like you. All bark and no bite without the right handler. Is that what you want? Are you looking for a new owner? Is that why you want to know who-”

Ghost kicked the man square in the chest, and he let out an aborted screech of surprise and fear as he and his chair went toppling over. Bateman blinked, eyes moving rapidly as he searched the room for her. She took her time retrieving her things, letting him stew in the uncertainty. When she could see his breathing stabilise slightly, she moved again. Swiftly, she stabbed him – not mortally – in the junction of nerves directly through his shoulder. He cried out, before he steeled himself. He was former Spec-Ops, she knew that he would have been trained to withstand interrogation. She was prepared for the exercise to take some time.

* * *

He held out longer than she expected.

She was almost impressed.

“ _Cross…Crossbones…”_ He’d had to whisper it, barely able to manage a full breath.

Ghost watched the bundle of evidence sink beneath the murky water of the Thames. The weapons that had been tainted with her own DNA had joined the rest of the pile she had stacked to sanitize and then dispose of, and though she would have liked to have kept one of the needles to examine, she had thrown it into the river too.

“ _He was…SHIELD…undercover…he…exposed…in DC…”_

Bateman had not known the real name of the man recruiting internationally for spies, soldiers, assassins and terrorists to join what appeared to be some kind of death squad. Just an alias. An alias, and another long list. Ghost didn’t know the name of every undercover agent that had been posted at SHIELD HQ during the takedown.

But she did know how to get them.

* * *

**5 th November, 2015**

**Paris, France**

* * *

The press of lips to the side of her neck made her still. The still new, but strangely welcome fizzle of _something_ in her gut only sparked hotter when her partner’s arms went slipping over her shoulders and down her sides, the weight of him settling against her as he embraced her as best he could in her seat at the desk.

“Ready for dinner?” his voice was muffled in her hair. It was longer now, dead straight and fine to the point of thinness, still growing an unnatural white, and just brushing her shoulders. To her partner’s amusement, it was now the same length he kept his. She envied him his full head of hair, his thick, almost wavy locks. She still looked…anaemic, even after more than a year of being out from HYDRA’s strict regime. Her partner was already golden skinned, fuller-cheeked, and she suspected taller, living and eating and exercising as he saw fit, rather than as dictated. Freedom looked good on him. It just made her pale – _paler_ – in comparison.

She hummed, reaching to run her fingers through his unbound hair, just because she could. Even now, the faint thrill of _warning_ , of _wrong_ made her hesitate to touch. Erasing years of conditioning took time, but it just made every causal touch a victory she revelled privately in. “Almost.” _Not really._ If she had her way, she’d sit until her work was done. With a fine-tooth comb, she had been going through the records of HYDRA agents stationed anywhere in the Washington state at the time of HYDRA’s exposure. She was crossing off anyone dead or in custody, and it was taking longer than she thought it would.

“What are you working on?” He asked, and she glanced back at the desk, at the files she still had open. Her partner had asked that question more times than she could count now, sometimes worded differently, sometimes accusatorily, sometimes sweetly – but mostly just curiously.

She couldn’t tell him what she was working on, until it was finished. She didn’t want to give him false hope.

So, she twisted, tugging slightly at his hair, making his eyes snap to hers, and smiled. “I’m looking at the agents stationed at DC when we were there.”

“Why?” he asked so gently, that she knew he was afraid she wouldn’t answer. Luckily, she had already thought of an adequate excuse.

“I wanted to see if my memory lined up.” She said, and stood. His arms fell away from her, and at the severing of their contact, she felt a distinct longing warring with an immediate relief. To spite herself, to crush the old feeling, she stepped back into his personal space. He had always been larger than her; made of muscle where she was made of shadow, and though she was still shorter than him, she was tall enough so that she could almost look directly into his eyes. When they kissed, she didn’t have to reach so far. It made it easier to hold his eye contact. Up this close, she could see the way grey and blue blended in his iris to make the pretty colour of his eyes. Up this close, she imagined she could see the machinations of his mind, the fractured, perfect contours there. She wondered which corners belonged to her.

Her partner understood memory.

“And did it?” he asked, swaying a little closer.

She smiled slightly, leaning in to press a short kiss to his mouth. “I’m not sure yet.” He searched her face for a moment, before his metal hand came up to delicately tuck a loose strand of her hair behind her ear, fingers ghosting the edges of the scarring that began at her temples.

She followed him from the room, pausing once to look back at her work.

_Soon._

* * *

**10 th November, 2015**

**Paris, France.**

* * *

In the early hours of the cold morning, Ghost got to the final name on her list.

No matter how hard she looked, no matter which contacts she harassed, no matter which leads she followed – there was one agent left unaccounted for after the events of DC. It was probably the lack of personal surprise that solidified her belief in her findings.

Because Brock Rumlow had always been a vicious, fervent follower of HYDRA doctrine. Because the man was cruel, and Ghost knew that he revelled in the pain of others. Because she knew he would have a vendetta, and to achieve his goals, he would need help. Because killing Captain America was harder than it seemed on paper. _She would know._

Crossbones – Rumlow – had been pulled from the wreckage of the Triskelion, and been placed on immediate life-support. He hadn’t been charged with the various crimes he had committed, because up until a few months ago, he had been in a coma. Ghost had read the extensive transcript of his care, and she’d seen the police-file opened when Crossbones had made a break for freedom. Somehow, the man had managed to escape American jurisdiction, and had been making leaps and bounds in his sinister and somewhat vague plans.

Ghost had located as many recipients of Rumlow’s encoded transmission to HYDRA and their sympathisers, and though she’d been able to get to a few – including Bateman – none of them seemed to have any real idea of Rumlow’s true motives. Ghost would make a guess that Rumlow would aim to first make some money – steal it, most likely – before embarking on some kind of revenge plot, most likely revolving around Steve Rogers.

In her addled state – scatterbrained by her sudden epiphany and several nights of no sleep – she had the wild notion to simply track and kill Rumlow herself. It didn’t take her long to reach the realisation that it would take too long, and more resources than she had on hand. And then, she had another thought.

She had been searching for some way to get what her partner wanted; _forgiveness._

What better way to begin, than to give Steve Rogers a _gift_.

From what she knew of the man, HYDRA was as much his enemy as water was fire’s. He had been ready to give his life to exterminate them, and she respected that. From what she could tell, the hunt for HYDRA had only gone on as long as it had taken the Avengers to be distracted by another catastrophe of their own making. She had seen no evidence of anyone but her looking into the rat nests and the vermin still surviving in the shadows.

She wanted HYDRA gone, and so did Steve Rogers. And something told her that Rogers would take Rumlow’s mission to cause chaos personally.

* * *

The commute home had been, as it always was, horrible. The Parisian metro system was generally cleaner than the American version, and smelt far less like urine, but he didn’t think he’d ever grow to like – or even accustomed to – the crush of passengers at the end of the day. He jogged up out of the station, ducking his head automatically at the CCTV camera affixed over the exit, and sucked in a quiet breath of the fresher night air. With the overwhelming noise and sensation gone, he could take a second to wonder about his aversion.

_Was it his own, or was it something that belonged to the Soldier?_

The rediscovered history he remembered showed him taking trolleys just as packed, showed him surrounded by the public, friends and family, with no relief and no rejection. _No_. He hadn’t been born with the desire to avoid others.

As always, his thoughts went to his partner. She didn’t like crowds either, and perhaps it was simply an ingrained response he’d developed over time too. As always, the realisation filled him with a bittersweet triumph. For him, aligning the memories and habits of the man he had been with what he was today was always a victory. Often though, it came with more sorrow. Disparities, sometimes within himself, usually with his partner – just made him painfully aware of what had been taken from him, and what she had never had.

The lights were off in their small apartment. Their neighbours: a cheerful couple that had attempted to throw them a housewarming party – had their own lamps lit, as did much of the apartment block. It just made the small dark square of their window all the more prominent.

He just wished he didn’t have to come home to empty rooms.

The rickety elevator that serviced the residents of the block always squealed in between the third and fourth floor, and though he was now used to the screaming mechanics, he still winced at the sound, gratefully stepping out of the wrought iron box and into the thin hall.

It smelt like roasting vegetables in the space beyond the elevator, onion and rosemary, a warm kind of smell. He wondered idly what he’d have for dinner; something simple. His partner preferred to do the cooking, and whilst he _could_ eat and cook for survival, something about a kitchen seemed to defeat his meagre skills.

He was so sure that he had the place to himself, that his partner would be out again, it took him a dangerously long time to realise he wasn’t alone.

He kicked off his work boots at the door, slinging his coat over the hook, threw his keys with customary accuracy into the bowl on the side table, and meandered into the kitchen. He pulled open the fridge, staring blindly at the pots of yogurt, a few loose plums, and an old sandwich he wasn’t sure was still classified as food.

The faint flicker of movement in his periphery made him turn, gun already in his hand, and he met the amused eyes of his partner through the low partition that separated the kitchen from the living room. He blinked, taking in the strange scene.

The dining table was set for two. Alight on every flat surface was a concerning amount of tea candles, filling the living room with a soft warm light. Steaming gently on the plates was the roast he’d smelt, and some grilled chicken. She’d even stuck three long stemmed irises in a jug half filled with water.

“Welcome home.”

He could admit freely that his brain may have frozen, the odd sensation of receiving an error message making him jerkily lower his weapon at her soft voice.

Just as strange as the dinner setting was his _partner_.

Perhaps it was the light, turning her to liquid gold, fair hair and skin glowing – but he couldn’t be sure. There was a tremulous _something_ to her face, her lips pressed tightly together as if to conceal a smile or a secret.

“Uh, thank you?” He walked slowly toward the table. “What’s- what’s this for?” he couldn’t help but be wary.

And then-

 _There_.

A great big, beaming smile that he didn’t think he’d ever seen lit up her face. And she _giggled_. Like, hand over mouth, lash-fluttering, excited _giggling._ He wasn’t sure whether or not to be concerned. She bit her lip, trying and failing to straighten her face. “It’s for you. Can’t I surprise you?”

He smiled bemusedly, looking around again. “Well, consider me surprised.” At his words, her face grew impossibly happier. She stepped right through the table, phasing through the set up until she was in his arms. He had the odd sensation of a distant coolness on his skin before she solidified, pressing herself into him. For a moment, she just looked at him, pale eyes sparkling, lips still curved happily. “God, you’re beautiful.” He breathed, unable to help himself. Like a dam breaking, she surged towards him, and he met her halfway, hands coming up to grip her delicate jaw as she curled her fingers into his shirt. She felt a little like porcelain, though he knew rationally she was so much stronger.

Her lips were cool, and tasted faintly like the red wine on the table. It was intoxicating, and he knew he probably should pull back, lest he frighten her. But it was hard to keep control when she kept deepening their kiss, when her cool fingers raked their way down her chest, catching on the button of his jeans-

He sucked in a breath, and pulled away. “Hey.” She blinked, looking a little star struck. “What’s going on? You don’t have to-”

Ghost phased out of his careful grip, until she was pressed against his chest again. “I know I don’t have to. I don’t have to do anything.”

“Right.” He nodded, searching her face. Her cheeks had warmed, and high spots of colour across her cheekbones, her swollen lips and her blown pupils made her look a different kind of tempting. She shouldn’t have to deal with him acting like some horny teenager-

“But I want to.” She murmured. He swallowed roughly as her hands returned to his jeans, her long fingers looping through his belt loops and tugging him against her.

He shook his head slightly, “Are you sure? I don’t want you to-”

She kissed him, hard enough to hurt slightly. “I want to.” She said, and bit down on his bottom lip. The bolt of sharp pain made him hiss, the tang of blood on the tip of his tongue and when she pulled away, there was a scarlet stain on her mouth.

“Fuck.” He swore, and reached for her.

* * *

His hands slid down, tightening under her thighs, and lifting. She felt her stomach flip, legs instinctively wrapping around his hips as he kissed her.

 _God_ -

It was… better. Better than she thought. Better than she had been told. Some rational part of her brain worried momentarily for the food on the table, but then he let go of her with one hand, and the fingers of his flesh hand – burning hot and startling – skated up her back, pushing up her shirt. Impatient suddenly, wanting to feel more of him against more of her, she leant back slightly, holding him in place with one hand on his throat, trusting him to support her weight as she reached for her own shirt.

She ripped the cotton, tearing it off her own body and tossing it to the side.

For a long moment, he stared. For a brief moment, she was stuck with an insecurity she had never felt before. She knew her body, _he_ knew her body – but context was everything. When had her body taken on this desirable quality? When had he looked at her bare chest besides treating a wound?

He bent, craning his neck slightly, and pressed a kiss to her breast, over her heart. The sound that came sighing from her made her blush, made him look up at her with wonder, before he did it again. Suspended, she couldn’t do anything but watch, as he trailed his lips over all the skin he could reach. Sparks settled low in her belly, and she twitched at the pooling heat in between her thighs.

The same heated impatience rose again, and she tugged at the collar of his shirt. He laughed quietly. “Yeah…yeah, I’ll- I will…” His voice was rough, words barely comprehensible. He lowered her to the ground, but it was as if she couldn’t be apart, and she leaned into him as he tugged off his shirt. The hard planes of his torso were still the same as she remembered, but the fluttering madness his chest and arms were inspiring was new. A good kind of new, she decided, bending to kiss him as he had kissed her, running her tongue across his right nipple and making him grunt.

His hands were back upon her, running over the places his mouth had touched, cupping her breasts, dipping down her stomach, thumbing at her hip bones. It was all she could do to breathe. _Why had she waited so long?_ If she could go back and slap her past self, she would. She tried to kneel, the way she’d been taught, the way the magazines said, but he caught her. “Whoa – let’s just- I mean, you don’t have to.”

She frowned. “But you want it?” she could see he could, could feel the thickening hardness through his jeans against her belly.

“I just want _you_. I want this to be good for you.” He said, sounding a little clearer. She reached for his length, stroking firmly over the denim of his jeans, feeling the way he jumped and twitched at her touch. “Shit, doll…” he groaned.

“I do what I want,” she told him, gripping him again, kissing him softly as he panted into her mouth. Seeing him so undone was stoking the fire in her belly higher, making her reckless, desperate. “When I want,” she sunk slowly to her knees, and this time he didn’t stop her, staring at her with a delicious hunger. Her fingers fiddled briefly with the button and zipper of his pants, before she undid them with a definitive snap. “And I want.”

He was hard, straining against the front of his boxers. She tilted her head slightly, running a finger down his clothed length, feeling the visceral reaction as his cock twitched and his hips jumped forwards. She did it again, watching as a small damp patch began to form. _Interesting_. As much as she would have liked to see how far she could push him without actually touching him, a deeper want made her tug down the waistband of his underwear. His cock sprung free, thick and reddened, and though she should have expected it; a little intimidating. Just to see, just to measure, she wrapped the fingers of her right hand around it. Above her, he let out a strangled hiss, and she looked up to see his head thrown back, eyes squeezed shut.

Amusement tempered her slight worry, enough to make her next movement confident. She ducked her head, and licked a long, slow stripe up the underside of his shaft. She pulled back, trying to hide her smile as she realised he had stopped breathing.

“James…” his name slipped from her lips surprisingly easily. She knew, distantly, that it was the first time she said it. Said his name. He seemed to know it too, looking down at her with wide eyes. Giddy elation made her grin. “Watch me.” She commanded. She lowered her head again, and took him in her mouth. He let out another pained noise, but he kept his eyes on her obediently. He tasted musky and warm, and though it wasn’t a familiar taste, it wasn’t entirely unpleasant, and the realisation made her bolder.

She took her time, working out how she could breathe and yet keep her mouth upon him, how to bob her head just so, how to twist her hand in time. He was patient, and she trusted him to keep still whilst she figured it out. It was only when she dared take him a little deeper, the thick weight of him brushing past her tongue, hitting briefly at the back of her throat did his control waver. His fingers flew to her hair, fisting in her loose locks, and his hips stuttered forwards, making her choke, surprised.

“Fuck! Sorry! Jesus, sorry!” he backed off as she coughed.

Eyes watering, she looked up at him. “Do it again.” She said, her own words surprising her. But she…she _wanted it_. She wanted to see him loosen his control again, and the thought of it was making her hotter. Gently, he did as she asked, letting her take him gently into her mouth until she growled, swallowing him down as best she could, ignoring her throat tightening reflexively. He swore, hands holding her in place again, thrusting into her mouth with abandon. She took it, holding back any reaction, watching him through the tears building uncontrollably in her eyes. _Fuck_.

Unable to help it, she reached between her legs, pressing against the soft place that was aching, aching for _him._ It helped somewhat, and she pressed harder, trying to unwind the coil spiraling tighter and tighter and tighter-

“ _Shit._ ” He pulled away from her, wrapping his hand tightly around the base of his cock, so tightly she thought it must have hurt. She panted, and he crouched before her, running his metal fingers under her teary eyes with that same expression of wonder, down her cheeks, over her mouth. Daring, she licked at the tips of his metal fingers, making him clench his jaw. “Darlin’…” he whispered, leaning in to kiss her softly. “Могу ли я коснуться тебя?” **_Can I touch you?_**

She nodded desperately. “Пожалуйста.” **_Please._** She gasped. He reached for her, and in a movement that left her breathless, tossed her over his shoulder. She couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the act, and he slapped her ass in retort. “What am I? Un sac de pommes de terre?” **_A sack of potatoes?_**

“Hardly.” He huffed a laugh, nudging open their bedroom door. He dropped her on the bed from high enough that she bounced slightly, managing to prop herself up on her elbows as he knelt at the end of the bed, cock proud and at attention, metal arm shining in the low light, flesh arm rippling with capable muscle. “You’re so much better than potatoes.” She found it a little hard to smile at his humour. Not when she wanted him so bad, not when he was looking at her like that, not when he was glowing with such beauty. “Hey. You okay?” he tilted his head, frowning at her slightly.

“Yes.” She managed to nod. “Very much okay.”

He grinned again, and languidly stretched forwards to kiss her, supporting his weight above her with one hand. She lost herself in his lips again, so preoccupied that she didn’t realise his free hand had skated down her body, until he popped the button of her jeans. She sucked in a breath, irrationally startled as he ran his fingers over her protruding hip-bone. He stilled, pulling back slightly, and for a moment they were quiet, breathing the same air as she calmed the slight nervousness she felt.

“Прикоснись ко мне.” **_Touch me._** She told him.

And he did.

Gently, he eased down her jeans, impossibly skilful for a man who had been celibate for the better half of a century. His fingers ran along the band of her panties, briefly skating under before he pulled back again, leaving her gasping at nothing. Much like she had found amusement in his responses, he seemed just as interested in her reaction, a heavy look in his eyes as he cupped her sex over the fabric. It was barely anything, barely a touch, barely pressure anywhere she wanted and needed it, but she groaned, the heady fire in her belly stoking higher.

He sucked harshly at her neck, the faint twinge of pain paired with a single, deliberate stroke over her pussy making her ball her fists in the sheets of the bed. She had another surge of impatience, and sat up, wiggling out of her panties as she half-collapsed into him. The new position was reminiscent of the night in Greece, when she’d ran a straight-razor over his face, and they’d slipped into a close embrace that she hadn’t quite known how to react to. Now, looking back, she could recognise the butterflies for what they were; not so much nervousness as a physical reaction to his body against her. Like this, with her legs on either side of his hips, her breasts to his chest, she could feel the pulsing heat of his cock against her belly, and she shivered.

He eased his hand between them again, and with unerring accuracy, rubbed against her clit, and the jolt of pleasure made her go stiff, staring at him with wide eyes. She could see her face reflected in his eyes, pale and startled looking. This time she smiled with him, even as her body shuddered without control, hips rolling in time with his perfect fingers. She was winding tighter and tighter, and the feeling was so strange she wanted to pause, back down from the peak that was beginning to feel as if it would overwhelm her.

His finger dipped, leaving her clit untouched and she growled slightly in frustration. Slowly, he circled her entrance, dipping in shallowly, though the unfamiliar sensation was enough to have her panting again. He kissed her open mouth, messy and wet, and slid a finger into her. She gripped at him, as he slowly withdrew, pumping back in just as slowly, and then out again, and again and again and again-

“Больше.” **_More_.**

It came out as an order, but he didn’t seem to take offense at her sharp tone, pressing kisses across her shoulders and collarbones. It was a different kind of pleasure now, slower and deeper, and though not as startlingly intense as before, she found herself swallowing back sounds wrenched from her as he worked another finger in. And then he let her go with his metal hand, and gripped her hip instead, fingers long enough that he could thumb at her clit with the cool metal. She shouted, some garbled mix of Russian, German and heavily accented English, as he worked her harder.

“Let go.” He told her, sounding just as out of breath as she was. “Let go, darlin’.”

She was about to tell him she didn’t know what he was talking about, about to ask him _what exactly she was supposed to be letting go of,_ when the coil snapped. Her vision spotted briefly, body shaking as she was overwhelmed by the waves of pleasure that had been building. _She didn’t- she hadn’t- if it-_

It was hard to think for a moment, and when the sensation of his fingers began to grow too sharp, her body too sensitive for touch, she batted at him weakly, limbs feeling oddly jelly-like. She was glad now, to be leaning against him. She didn’t think she could have supported her own weight. He pulled his hands back, metal hand moving back to its supportive place against her back, gently stroking down the nobs of her spine.

They panted together. She wondered if she looked as awestruck as she felt. She must have, because he smirked, far too smug, and pressed a kiss to her forehead, before he brought up his fingers to his lips. They were shiny, wet with – what she realised with a thrill of new arousal – her. He licked himself clean, holding her gaze with an entirely masculine satisfaction. She rolled her eyes, pretending the visual didn’t effect her as much as it did. Already, with his cock still hot and hard between them, she was feeling a new fluttering.

She rolled her hips again, this time deliberately, and felt him slide between her lips, made slick with her wetness. He grunted, and kissed her, taking himself in hand. She could taste herself, the warm saltiness of herself on his tongue. It just made her twitch again, clenching around nothing.

None of this was familiar to her.

Sex was one thing. Sex was a transaction. It wasn’t pleasure, and it wasn’t intimacy. That was what she had been taught, and it was what she had taught the Black Widows under her patronage.

Being made to feel like _this_ -

It was new, and it was incomparable to anything else. She was vulnerable in wake of the discovery of these feelings, and yet it was not a vulnerability that frightened her. Not with him. Never with him. When they kissed this time, it was gentle, and she wondered if he could somehow sense what she was feeling. It would neither shock or worry her if he actually could.

It stayed gentle, as he guided himself towards her entrance, when she sank down upon him slowly, full and stretched and _so warm-_

They moved together. It came as no surprise that they fit so perfectly, that their bodies, so used to moving in sync, could do this so perfectly too. She wrapped her arms around him, feeling that same crest approaching, albeit softer. He held her just as tightly, fingers in her hair, arm around her like a vice, and they sighed into each other. When his breath came shorter, when his controlled thrusts began to grow wild again, she reached between them, seeking out her clit, determined to come with him.

“Мой милый, мой маленький призрак, мой дорогой-” **_My sweet, my little ghost, my dearest-_** He whispered his endearing string of epithets into her ear, and as he moaned, she threw back her head and came with him. It was different again, to feel him spill inside her, hot and wet, and she could feel her body milk at him as she caught her breath. “Shit.” he muttered to himself, gulping down a breath.

This close to him, she could hear his heartbeat, and knew he could hear hers. She pressed her face into his shoulder and listened as it slowed, as it regained its steady, familiar pace. He held her and they breathed.

There had been a subtle shift. Something else had slid into place, something undefinable, some barrier breached, some trust built. It was an eternal sort of feeling, and she thought that she might stay with there forever.

But the cold part of her, the darker part whispered;

_She was not finished._


	6. New York, USA, 2015

**11 th November, 2015**

**Brooklyn, New York, USA.**

* * *

It had been a century.

In less years, empires had fallen, cities had been built, love had been lost, had been gained, battles fought and won or lost.

Still, the New York he had known lingered on. It had just taken him a little while to realise it. Of course, the streets looked different, the buildings bigger, the cars louder and faster, the world somehow younger despite the years that had passed.

Suppose that was what wartime did.

Made everything old and tired and pained.

The New York he knew was still here, under the bravado of the modern era. _Jesus._ He’d promised Natasha he’d stop acting like an old fogey. It was in the smog lingering in the alleys, it was in the still brilliant sunrises and sunsets, it was in the constant bustle of the streets, the crease on a layman’s brow, the smell of salt-water by the docks, the rush of subway air. It was there.

It didn’t stop him looking for the pieces he missed.

He’d gone to his first apartment the other day. He still remembered the row of chipped glasses and mugs Bucky’d lined up along the windowsill, like a monument to Steve’s shaky hands. The building wasn’t there anymore. There was a gym instead, and an obnoxious healthy juice café. He thought Bucky would have flipped off the judgemental looking barista that had stared and glared at him.

He thought a lot about Bucky.

Steve looked back down at the sketchbook he’d splayed across the too-small wicker table. His best friend’s face looked back. Steve set down his graphite deliberately, ignoring the faint tremor of his hands. These days, when his hands shook, it wasn’t because he was cold, or because he was sick.

This particular sketch of Bucky wasn’t really _him._ Not how Steve knew him best. This Bucky was the haunted looking man that had looked at him without recognition, and had tried to drive a knife through his heart. He took a sip of his now-cold coffee, and shut the book.

He’d also promised Natasha he wouldn’t beat himself up about it.

His phone buzzed, the two-tone sound of an email. He couldn’t help but smile slightly at his own small victory, even if it was only recognizing the sounds of text alerts. He didn’t have the luxury of ignoring anything that actually made its way through to him. Tony could be an ass, but he could appreciate the man’s dedication to filtering out any noise that could have occupied the personal channels of his life. When he’d first had a phone, somehow his number had been leaked, and he’d suffered a few months of non-stop bombardment before Tony took pity on him and installed privacy settings and upgraded the phone itself.

So, the unfamiliar email address that appeared atop his screen set off deafening alarm bells.

He hunched over his phone, unable to resist the urge to scan his surroundings, neck prickling. The street moved on around him; the coffee machine inside the café chugged and hissed, the waitress that had served him looked at him curiously, fresh brownies steamed atop the glass counter. _Relax, soldier._

The email was undecipherable. It was formatted strangely, and made up of rows of symbols that made up patterns that could have been words. Steve sighed, finger hovering over the delete button. Spam, probably. Maybe one of Stark’s automated systems glitching. It didn’t matter, he could just-

A string of symbols caught his eye. If he _reversed_ it, then it looked similar to code _he_ had used, back during the war. _Yeah._ He eyed other symbols that were familiar, dotted over the email’s text. But it didn’t account for the other symbols, entirely unfamiliar, and barely even numeric or alphabetic. It almost looked… _Russian._

He frowned, taking a screenshot of the email in case it disappeared, and then dialled the first number on his speed dial.

“ _Steve?”_ Natasha answered on the first ring, voice casual, but Steve knew her well-enough now to pick up on the note of worry. Guilt swirled in his gut. He clearly needed to call more, if her first response was panic.

“Hey, Nat.” He sat back in his chair, eyes drifting to the skyline, to the still-half fixed Stark Tower. Natasha was quiet, and he breathed. “Did you get an email?”

“ _I was going to call you_.” She said, sounding relived. “ _There’s some old code I don’t recognize_.”

“I recognize it.” Steve said. _She didn’t sound surprised._ A note of suspicion made him cold. “You know who sent it.”

Natasha sighed. “I think we both know who did.”

Steve scowled, fingers stilling on the worn cover of his sketchbook. “How long have you been in contact? Why didn’t you tell me, Nat-”

“ _Steve! This is the first I’ve heard directly from them… look, I should have told you I was still looking, but I didn’t think I was going to find anything_ ,”

Her voice faded for a moment, the sudden wave of frustration and old memories making his throat tighten momentarily. He should have been better than this. Maybe this was why she hadn’t told him.

“- _Okay? Steve_?”

He blinked, the world coming into a roaring rushing focus again. “What? Yeah. Sorry, what did you say?”

It took her a moment to respond, and Steve could practically picture her carefully considering face. “ _I said I have some things, if you wanted to see them.”_

“Of course I do.” He replied instantly, already standing, his chair giving a loud screech at his abrupt movement. He dropped a random note on the table; probably more than he needed to pay, but it didn’t matter, and started towards his bike.

 _“Steve, it’s not much. It’s just shadows_.”

Steve tried not to feel too hurt. “It’s still more than anything I’ve had to hold onto on months.” His voice was still bitter.

She breathed a sigh, one of real regret. “ _I **am** sorry, Steve.”_

“Yeah. I’ll see you soon.”

Steve shoved his phone in his pocket and straddled the Harley. The engine roared to life with a satisfying growl, and he gunned it towards the compound.

* * *

Natasha watched Steve arrive from the window of the living area. His shoulders were tense, but even from here, she could tell the tight set of his mouth was more about hope than anything. _She should have just told him_.

Now it was all going to come out at once, and whilst Steve was too good of a man to hold it against her, she knew she’d hurt him with her deception. That, of course, was a running theme for her. She smiled humourlessly to herself, and turned to head back towards the sofa, where her laptop was already set up.

The email was still glaring at her from her open screen, and she ran her eyes over the lines of code again. The letters and words she recognized were still too disjointed to make sense of anything. Just as she sat, with perfect timing, Steve strode in, casting his leather jacket aside. “You have it?”

“Hello to you too.” She said, maybe a little too lazily, because his eyes flashed with brief irritation. She nodded towards the laptop. “I’ve already decoded my parts.” It was only as she said it did she realise just how accurate the statement was. The message had been split in two perfect, indecipherable parts – only solvable by the two of them, meant entirely for their eyes only. She was suddenly glad she’d forgone asking for Vision or Tony’s help.

Steve grunted, and sat beside her, tugging the laptop towards himself. She pushed a notepad and pen towards him as he began to frown at the screen. He still preferred to work on paper. Her own decoded work was already on the screen. Steve began to scribble away, and she thought about sitting back.

“So, what haven’t you told me?” Steve’s quiet question was enough to make her sit straighter.

She had been expecting it, and turned to pick up the stack of relevant files she’d hastily collated after he’d hung up. “A trail of bodies mostly. Dead Hydra agents and sympathisers. A video from Istanbul. And now this.” His jaw worked, but he remained quiet, dutifully writing out his half of the message neatly, leaving spaces for her. Natasha hesitated. “And- and something else.”

At this, he looked up. Maybe it was some tell in her voice she could no longer recognize. Maybe he just knew her that well. Most likely it was her own sentiment. “What?” He asked.

Natasha studied his face for another moment; handsome, familiar, innately kind. Her friend. Her chosen family. He deserved to know. She _wanted_ him to know. “The woman,”

“Ghost.” Steve supplied absently.

She inclined her head. “She’s- she’d more than just my past. More than the Red Room.” Steve’s face had gone very still. Perhaps she was rubbing off on him too. “She’s my family. Flesh and blood.”

What she didn’t expect was his sudden and fierce embrace. She didn’t realize just how much she needed it, either – until his arms were around her, strong enough to force her to relax. He held her for a moment before he pulled away. “I’m happy for you.” He said, with genuine joy.

Natasha could help but smile briefly. “I am too. Even if is…like this. Even after all of this. I somehow don’t feel as alone.”

Steve patted her once more on the shoulder, a grave sort of understanding in his eyes, before he handed her the notepad. She took it, and began to write. Steve picked up the stack of files, and she couldn’t help but hear his quiet intake of steadying breath. She might have discovered family, but Steve had just as much stake in their recovery mission as her.

_For your eyes only; Captain Steven Grant Rogers & Natalia Alianovna Romanoff._

Natasha almost smiled at the cheesiness and lack of necessity in the introduction. The next lines, however, were enough to wipe any joy from her mind.

_The dead you have no doubt been chasing are dead for a reason. We have a common enemy. Many enemies, in truth. But I am trying to lessen the dark stain HYDRA has left upon the world._

To have her suspicions confirmed was one thing. To see her mentor’s writings, her voice somehow clear through the mixture of her and Steve’s handwriting was another. Natasha could almost hear her; the cool, crisp diction of a woman who had lived a life of efficiency.

_I make contact to establish one thing. Forgiveness._

Natasha stopped writing.

“What is it?” Steve looked up as she set down her pen. Wordlessly, she passed him the notepad. His brow creased. “I don’t understand…”

Natasha shook her head. “She doesn’t- I mean, she never thought in the first person. Her own needs were never at the forefront of her mind – she was literally conditioned, _created_ to be as close to a machine as they could get.”

Steve reached for the pen. He had always been more impatient than her. It was the soldier in him. Natasha watched as the rest of the message came to life.

_It is taking work – dirtier work than I think you would be comfortable with, Captain Rogers. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t write for myself. I am giving you a name, and a location._

_Brock Rumlow, former Commander of SHIELD Strike Force Alpha, known HYDRA Agent, will be in North Korea in approximately three weeks. He has assembled a parody of his old unit, despite my best efforts to stop them. Rumlow has taken on a new alias; CROSSBONES._

_Despite the infantile name, he is more dangerous than he was when you knew him._

_He is my gift to you, Captain Rogers. In the same spirit of giving, I ask you accept and facilitate my partner’s return to the US._

_This message is not an invitation to chase us. We will not be found until he can return._

_He deserves forgiveness._

Natasha looked slowly to Steve. There was something churning behind his eyes; an unnameable, untameable mess of emotion.

“He deserves forgiveness.” Steve’s voice was barely a whisper. This time, Natasha was the one to hold him. Steve didn’t cry, but the way he let her embrace him was telling enough.

A small seed of jealousy turned her stomach. _What about her?_ Some childish part of her glowered and stomped her foot. _Was she nothing?_


	7. Paris, 2015

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ayez un peu de romance.

**12 th December, 2015**

**Paris, France**

* * *

Wakefulness came gently.

Cool fingers, delicate and deliberate, traced the lines of her spine. They dipped around and over the scars left by her implant surgery, the distinct sound of metal on metal clinking as her partner’s hand reached the implants themselves.

Ghost turned her head to look at her partner lying in the bed next to her.

In the yellow-white light of the Parisian morning, he seemed softer than usual. With his hair unbound and splayed around his head like a halo, she thought he looked similar to the archangels depicted by DaVinci, but for the sharp contours of his face; more masculine than the sweet faced creatures the master had painted. Sunlight pooled and illuminated the blueness in his gaze, making his eyes little chips of the sky. She thought perhaps they were warmed from within too, and the notion of such a thing made her giddy enough to smile at him, feeling a little foolish, even as he smiled in return.

He had a face for smiling, she mused, he seemed far better suited to it than scowling. She wondered if her own smile looked as easy. Probably not. Her cheeks were already starting to ache from it.

His hand glinted in the light, dazzling her for a brief moment, as he left her back to touch once at the scarring on her temples, before touching at fullest part of her bottom lip. “What do you want to do?” He asked quietly. Unconsciously, her gaze dropped down the length of him, unable to help herself. Her quick ogling look hadn’t been as subtle as she thought, because he laughed brightly, a little smugly. “Again?”

She could feel her cheeks warm, and huffed, turning to press her face into the pillow. The act did nothing to stop her blush, as she was reminded of being shoved down into the same position not half an hour earlier. “Can you blame me?” she muttered into the pillowcase.

“What was that?” He asked teasingly.

She grunted, knowing perfectly well he had heard her, and lifted her head to give him a baleful look. “Can you blame me?” She repeated anyway, narrowing her eyes at the smirk he gave her.

His own stare was even less subtle than hers had been, confidently so, and she felt that now-familiar heat run the length of her as he took his time looking at her naked form. “No, I cannot.” He said, a little breathlessly, and her resolve wavered and then snapped. She lifted herself up, and rolled atop him, the sheets tangling around their hips for a moment before he shoved them away impatiently, already stretching up to meet her lips halfway. “Ah, darlin’…”

They didn’t make it out of bed for another few hours.

* * *

The Avenue des Champs-Elysées’ wide, green-lined sprawl hid them effectively. To the hordes of tourists streaming to and from the Place de la Concorde, they were just another pair of lovers, strolling for the pleasure of it. _Lovers._ The word sent a shiver down her spine, just as the first taste of ice-cream did.

The City of Light had always inspired passion in others, and there was a faint satisfaction in adhering to the romance of the place. It felt – and here she had pause, for what did she know about it – like normality. Beside her, her partner matched her meandering pace, a thick woollen cap pulled low on his brow and covering his ears, which she knew was less of an aversion tactic than one of comfort. His ears and his nose always suffered in the cold, and he always pleaded ‘poor-circulation.’

It surprised her how much the sight of a pink nose and puppy-dog eyes made her belly flip and tighten. _Normality._

They had made it past the US embassy opposite Le Chalet du Grand Palais, and in what she thought was an act of equal parts bravery and stupidity, lingered near the tall gates at a crepe stand to purchase a bottle of water. Behind them, the obelisk loomed, and she had a faint flash of memory; running, invisible and bleeding, across the cobblestones of the Concorde. She wondered if the Embassy had updated their security since their assignment there.

“It hasn’t changed much.” Her partner mused, licking distractingly at his ice-cream cone. She blinked at the pink of his tongue before she properly registered his words, nodding absently.

He was right; Paris still felt the same, and the streets had maintained their layout, and the tourist-traps were still crowded, and the locals were still impatient, and the food was still good. The last time they had been here, they had been passing through, sneaking from a mission in London by night. “I like Paris.” She said, scooping a bit of her blood-orange sorbet, and letting it melt completely in her mouth. She was unaffected by the temperature, the chill of the winter wind nothing to her, and though both her partner and the vendor had given her an odd look as she purchased her scoop, her partner had gamely bought a cone for himself too. “I always have.” She continued, nodding at the old, grand buildings that lined the street. He barked a laugh, and she narrowed her eyes at him. “What?”

“I seem to remember a certain someone saying; Если я больше никогда не увижу Эйфелеву башню, я умру счастливым.” **_If I never see the Eiffel Tower again, I will die happy._** He mimicked her in a serious, clipped, husky voice, that she didn’t think sounded anything like her. The casual reference to the before, to a previous mission, jolted something in her.

Cautiously, she smiled with him. They didn’t speak often of their time in the field, but the light atmosphere had not been broken, and so she allowed herself to nod. She _did_ remember the incident. It had been one of those missions that hadn’t ended well, and she’d been forced to cross the city on foot, invisible, and had waited two full days in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, bloodied and pained, for the extraction unit. “I have changed my mind.” She told him, a little snootily, and swiped her spoon across the top of his cone. He let her steal his ice-cream, snorting at her displeased scowl at the taste of vanilla. It was sweet and mostly tasteless. She didn’t understand why he liked it so much.

“Good! Because I booked a trip to the top of the tower.” He grinned earnestly, and she fought to smile back. “I’m kidding.” He laughed, and she scowled in earnest, shoving at his shoulder. “Your face…”

“Careful, or I’ll bring you to the Storsjön and drop you in.” Another mission gone awry, and it was her turn to laugh at his sour expression. Her partner had survived his accidental trip into the sub-zero waters of the frozen Swedish lake, but ever since, had approached large bodies of water with an amusing amount of caution.

He clutched at his chest, looking mockingly wounded. “You wouldn’t…you’d miss me too much.” It was said lightly, and yet her heart beat a stuttered staccato.

“I would.” She told him, unable to help the seriousness of her tone. “I would miss you.”

His wide grin sobered slightly, and he shifted his grip on his ice-cream in favour of taking her free hand in his. It was a simple gesture, the intertwining of their fingers together, and yet her heart raced again, and she looked around them instinctually, fighting the urge to rip herself from his grasp. “I know.” He said simply, and when her eyes had returned to his, raised her hand to press a kiss to her bare knuckles.

The moment was broken at the sudden outcry of a group of Japanese tourists outside the large Disney store. They slipped around them, and she ducked her head at the amount of camera phones being toted, that edge of warning sounding again. Ahead, the intricate carvings of the Arc de Triomphe began to take proper form, the foot traffic dying away as the well-traversed avenue gave way to the twelve-pointed spiral of busy roads dominated by cars and trucks and the occasional motorbike. Whilst she despised the Eiffel Tower, and the streets of Passy she’d been forced to occupy, she was caught with an excited curiosity at the prospect of the Arc.

“Do you want to climb it?” Her partner was watching her again, a knowing look in his eyes. “it’s not far to the top.” He blinked after he spoke, a faint cloud passing over his eyes.

“You have been before?” She frowned slightly, racking her brains for the memory of a mission that would have brought either of them to the peak of the monument. She came up empty, but the cloudy look in his eyes had given way to a familiar triumph. It was the look he got when he remembered something; something from before Hydra.

He nodded. “When I was stationed in Paris. I’m pretty sure we got drunk and broke in.” _Not a bitter memory then._ He grinned, in a cocksure kind of way. “I brought some locals girls up there. I don’t know why I thought that would impress them…”

She laughed with him, at the absurdity of the act. “I hope you didn’t try and give them a tour.” He winced, and she chuckled again, picturing him drunk and stumbling on his French, trying to wow women that had lived in Paris all their lives with one of the most well-known pieces of their city. “Oh, James…” she sighed.

His eyes sparked at his name, and his smile grew wider, pleased looking. “I _swear_ I was good with dames.”

She looked pointedly at their interlinked hands. “I believe you.” She told him. She had shrugged off a lifetime of conditioning to run away with him, and whilst it was more complex than such a simple explanation, she had still been drawn to him in a way she shouldn’t have been. Surely, he could recognize that for the miracle it was.

He chuckled, and then looked worried. “You don’t- I mean it doesn’t bother you, does it?” he asked, a little vaguely, as they joined the queue of tourists waiting to buy tickets for the Arc. She shook her head slightly, wordlessly confused by his question. “Other girls. I mean- the ones that I, y’know.” She would have laughed at his bashfulness if he wasn’t trying so hard to be sweet and delicate about it.

“It doesn’t bother me.” She told him, truthfully. It didn’t. It was animal and selfish of her, archaic somehow, but she knew she had a claim on him. She had ties to him that couldn’t be voiced, and even if he did decided to walk away, if he decided to never kiss her again – she would content herself with what they had shared. Even the darkest, bloodiest, most painful parts of it.

He seemed to hesitate a moment, caught between desire and sense, and she swayed a little into him, curious. He looked down at her, searching her eyes for a moment before he moved. It was simple really, just the loose embrace of one arm around her shoulders, but it brought her close enough to him that he could press his lips to her forehead. He let her go quickly, and she writhed internally at the simple intimacy; old, ingrained feelings of recoil and horror making her twitch away from him. It still warmed her, and she forced herself to meet his eyes again and smile. “Okay?” he whispered, careful.

“Okay.” She echoed, meaning it with every particle of her being.

* * *

The rest of the day passed in the same fashion. They reintroduced themselves to the city, and played at being tourists, though their French was a little too good, and they ducked away from cameras, and flinched at sirens.

She did not know when his hand found hers again, and it was only as the sun was dipping behind the peak of Montmarte, that she realised they’d been walking linked. And of course, once she had realised, she was hyperaware of it, but wrestled the squirrely feeling of discomfort down, and held a little tighter. _Afterall_ , she reminded herself, with a faint flush of heat, _they had spent their previous night and the morning far closer and far more vulnerable._

They took the metro back to the 4th arrondissement and ate at a tiny bistro close enough to the Notre-Dame that from their seats facing the street – the waitress giving them a strange look after they’d brought both of their chairs to one side of the table – they could see the tip of the spires of the cathedral. They both had duck confit, and she resolved to find a recipe for it after the first bite, and he drank a beer, and she sipped at a glass of white wine that had been recommended but didn’t really like.

He took her hand again when they left, and on the metro back to their flat, she leaned against him and told herself she needed to in order to save space. The train car wasn’t near crowded enough for it to necessary. His hand found its way under her open coat, and splayed against the small of her back and held her there, and though he kept his gaze determinedly on the little blinking station lights above the door, she could see the way his lips kept curving into a small smile.


	8. Paris, 2015

**22 nd December, 2015**

**Paris, France**

* * *

“What is this?”

It was the tone of his voice that made her look up, struck by the cold tone she hadn’t heard in some time. He was framed in the doorway, and holding a torn piece of newspaper in danger of being ripped further by his tight grip.

She looked at him, more bemused than anything, and returned her gaze to the carrots she was peeling with one of her favourite knives. “I won’t know until you show-”

The crumpled paper was slammed down so hard that the counter groaned, and she spun, instinct warring with concern, knife levelling at his sternum. His face was tight with restrained emotion. She frowned, searching his gaze for a moment longer. His jaw worked furiously, and in the short time it took her to set down the knife and vegetable and look at the paper, he stormed off towards the bedroom.

The headline and following images made her blood run cold in her veins.

**M'AS TU VU?**

HAVE YOU SEEN ME?

She wasn’t sure where the image of her had been taken; it was grainy and only showed half of her face, but there was no mistaking the now familiar black-and-white portrait of her partner in his old army uniform. She read on, alarm blaring through her body and sharpening her focus to ice.

_The DGSE has reason to believe that wanted American-Soviet HYDRA fugitives have taken residence in Paris, and urges local law enforcement and the general public to be alert. All reports will be followed up, and any information is to be reported immediately. WANTED AND DANGEROUS-_

The rest of the article was torn off, and a heavy thud from the bedroom made her look up. “James?” she called, a little uncertain. He strode from the bedroom, eyes sliding over her as if she wasn’t there. “солдат.” **_Soldier._** She tried, and his title made him stiffen and still from where he was bent at the bathroom cabinet. “I don’t understand. We were careful-”

“Don’t give me that shit.” His voice was biting and sudden, and she stiffened defensively. “Turn on the news.”

She did as he asked, and for a moment she wasn’t sure what she was looking for, watching the young weather girl point to a snowstorm on the green-screen behind her wordlessly. And then her eyes caught on a familiar name and title, scrolling along the news banner at the bottom of the screen.

_Natasha Romanoff, Black Widow, Avenger, takes a Christmas holiday in Paris._

Nausea flooded her gut, and she turned back to her partner, unsure what to say, but hoping to explain. She hadn’t thought the woman could trace the email; she’d sent it from a throwaway account, routed it through as many IP addresses and networks as the shitty computer at the IT-Café could manage without breaking- _Fuck._

Her guilt must have shown in her face, because the anger simmering on her partner’s face reached a boiling point, and he stood, slamming the cabinet shut so hard that it cracked at the hinge. It swung there, limp and broken and she sucked in a quick breath. “Я не спрашивал ее-” **_I didn’t ask her-_**

“Did you fuck me because you wanted to, or because you wanted to distract me?” Though his rage was hot, his voice was cold and restrained, near remote. It was the Soldier who spoke, though James simmered and stewed in his eyes. 

She shook her head. “I wanted to- I _did,_ I wanted- I don’t know- but, _James_ , I wasn’t trying to-”

“Trying to what? Get us caught? Fuck, Ghost. Of all the suicidal-” He cut himself off, shoving the two guns he’d pulled from the hiding place into his waistband, and strode past her, shoulder colliding roughly with her own.

She spun after him, with the momentum. “I was asking for leniency, James. I’ve been making amends, I just had to make sure they knew I was.” It was the wrong thing to say, and she knew it immediately, shutting her mouth with a click as he strode back towards her.

“’Amends?’ What _‘amends_ ’?”

He knew her too well, that was the undoing of it. She didn’t even need to say it. He knew her too well and had probably known even back then what she had been doing, but had been unwilling to admit it, but now it was staring them in the face. She held his gaze. “You- All those trips, all those outings…” There was a tremulous sort of horror to his voice.

“It had to be done.” She couldn’t help the clipped tone of her voice, the defensive stance she took, hands curling into fists at her sides. “HYDRA needed to-”

“ _Fuck_ HYDRA!” He swore again, and barked a hysterical laugh. “You were out there, _alone_ , and you didn’t tell me. What, you didn’t trust me?” She shook her head, opening her mouth to argue, but he bulldozed through, sharp and cutting. “You were stupid. Stupid and proud. _Jesus-_ you could have died! You. Could. Have. Died. And I wouldn’t have known. I would not have known where to go to find you. I would have-”

He ducked his head, and held his breath. She watched the shaky exhale that made his shoulders twitch, and willed herself to speak. Somehow, she couldn’t make her mouth work, couldn’t form the words she needed to say. She stood; carved of ice, carved of stone.

Finally, he looked back up. There was no anger in his eyes now, and she hated the steely blankness that had replaced it, the wall that had gone back up. It was that disconnect, that horrible indifference that brought her voice back. “Я просил прощения.” **_I was asking for forgiveness._** She croaked, and reached for him. This time, he flinched from her, and there was nothing imaginary about the sharp pain that stabbed through her chest. “Я пытался заработать дорогу домой.” **_I was trying to earn our way home._**

His face flashed with momentary realisation, and she knew he was remembering their picnic on the hill, and her rhetorical question.

_If he wanted you back, if you could go back, you would?_

The emotion was gone as quickly as it had come, and it was as if he had donned a mask. “Нам нужно разделиться. Она будет ожидать, что мы будем вместе.” **_We need to split up. She'll expect us to be together._**

A heavy weight settled low in her chest. “We’re stronger together, safer together-” She tried, desperation colouring her voice, but it was as if the more emotional she got, the further away he drifted. There was no warmth in his eyes when he looked at her. “James, дорогой, please.” **_darling._**

“Свидание в Бухаресте через четыре месяца. Надеюсь, это ее потрясет.” **_Rendezvous in Bucharest in four months’ time. Hopefully it'll shake her._** And then he was gone, the front door swinging open behind him.

She stared at the doorway, at the empty space, and imagined briefly, the greying, decrepit form of her handler appearing there.

 _Dog._ He called her. _You forget yourself, dog._ His watery, blind eyes stared at her, and he sneered and spat. _You forget who you belong to._

Her partner had not been born to HYDRA. He was not their spawn. Not like she was. She wondered just how putrid and decayed her insides had become, if the sticky, black tentacles of HYDRA had always filled her, wriggling and poisonous. She must have been born rotten; born murderous and savage, untrusting and brutal. She was not warm like he was. She thought about the cavern in her chest, about the blackened, crusted hole where a heart should have been. She had let herself, for a moment, a foolish moment – forget what she was.

Monsters did not have hearts, and they were not good, and they did not deserve the warmth and solace he had offered.

_You forget yourself, dog. You forget who you belong to._

* * *

**22 nd December, 2015**

**Paris, France**

* * *

Natasha stood in the middle of the empty apartment, and tried to keep calm.

There were two peeled carrots on the kitchen counter, one still sitting in a pile of its skin, turning brown with exposure to the air. The fridge door was open, and one of the bathroom cabinet doors was swinging loosely on a single hinge, and the television was on and muted.

But there was nothing else.

No evidence of her quarry. No other evidence that any living person had been there. There were no belongings in the bedroom, the sheets had been stripped, the taps and sinks were dry, and the windows were shuttered tightly shut.

“Блядь!”

She swore, loudly and suddenly into the stillness of the apartment.

She had been close. _So_ fucking close. If not for the fame and notoriety that surrounded her, she might have had them. Might have had _her_.

She could hardly call herself a spy now; what with the embarrassing obnoxiousness of her arrival into Paris. She should have taken up Stark’s offer of a private jet, should have just flown the quinjet herself, should have done _anything_ but attempt to slip unnoticed into the country with the hordes of other holiday travellers.

She could picture her old mentor’s disapproving frown, could picture the faint disappointed furrow in her pale brow.

_“Ты лучше этого, Наталья.” You’re better than that, Natalia._

“Yeah, well… People like mystery a little too much.” She retorted aloud, lips twisting at the thought of the countless tabloid stories that claimed to know her, know her story, her habits. It seemed almost spiteful, a little ironic, that her persona, that the ‘Black Widow’ was one of the most sought-after Avengers. The media had appeared to take her skill set as a challenge. Usually she was able to evade paparazzi. She had been sloppy in her excitement.

Because it had taken her a while to narrow down the origin of the email, and she had begged the help of one of Stark’s many analysts, a shy, small man down at the very back of the basement floor. He had been near too timid to even help her, and she had unabashedly charmed her way to his assistance, and a promise of secrecy.

Once she had the location, she had moved quickly. Too quickly. She should have just fucking _planned_ better.

She pulled out her mobile, and dialled her contact at the DGSE. She needed to at least put the border on high alert, make sure they had every fucking guard in the fucking country on the look out for the pair. Natasha didn’t linger any longer in the apartment. There was only so much of the stillness she could take, and she knew they wouldn’t have left anything of value.

In the hall, one of the neighbour’s doors was open a little, and Natasha met the curious eye at the crack with the full force of her ire.

The door was shut again in haste.

* * *

**February 14 th , 2016**

**Adriatic Sea, Hvar, Croatia**

* * *

The crack of gunfire resounded off the still, sparkling water of the Adriatic. It was not the only sound that was at odds with the shimmering, crystalline scene; cries of pain and fear, shattering glass, and the loud crackling distortion of bubble-gum pop playing through a broken speaker all pounded unforgivingly from the pleasure yacht anchored off the coast of Hvar.

She was sweating; unusual, due to both her level of fitness, and her core temperature. But the Mediterranean sun was beaming down relentlessly, and the security that she had encountered aboard the boat were surprisingly well trained.

Ghost dived behind the last-standing bar at the prow of the yacht, just in time for machine gun fire to light up the deck where she had just been. A sharp, feminine squeal came from beside her, and she turned her head to meet the terrified eyes of yet another blonde, bikini-clad woman. _Christ._ Marko Vuković had a clear type, and heavy-handed taste. She’d counted no less than seven women aboard the yacht now, all wearing the same pink-heart patterned bikinis. The Croatian-millionaire businessman also had a heavy-handed influence in the remaining Euro-HYDRA cells.

Around them, glass and alcohol burst and the woman started screaming again. She ducked, rolling away again, phasing out of tangibility but staying visible – drawing the fire of the remaining pair of security guards. One of them was shirtless, and his glistening, sun tanned torso made a fine target for the short throwing knife she yanked from her belt. She stood, and threw it with all her strength.

It sunk with a wet thud, into the meaty flesh of his shoulder, and he squawked, bullets flying wide as he collapsed with the pain of it. The momentary lull in fire gave her enough time to cross the deck with quick strides, and grip the burning hot barrel of the other man’s gun, and force it skywards.

For a moment, they wrestled for control of the weapon, before she slammed her forehead into the jut of his nose. She could feel the crush of the cartilage against her forehead, and he grunted, grip loosening enough for her to tug the gun out of his grip, hefting the heavy weapon with one hand and firing a quick spurt at the downed man attempting to pull her knife from his shoulder. He collapsed silently, blood pooling under his body and blending into the red, sticky pools already formed by the other dead men atop the deck.

A sudden, crashing, bursting hit to the side of her head sent her reeling, and she dropped the gun in favour of stumbling back and clutching at her ringing skull. The last standing man brandished the remnants of the green glass bottle he’d hit her with, and she licked at the moisture dripping onto her lips. It was metallic with the tang of her own blood, and bubbly and sweet with what she assumed was the expensive champagne from the bottle.

“Hajde, kujo.” **_Come on, bitch._** He spat, panting heavily. She blinked again, clearing her vision of the dizzy spots that burst across her retina. The broken speaker switched songs, and a distantly familiar staccato beat began.

“ _This hit, that ice cold, Michelle Pfeiffer, that white gold. This one for them hood girls, them good girls straight masterpieces_ -” The whiny, American singer sung, and he leapt for her.

She bent, leaning away from the sharp jab of the bottle as it came whistling through the air towards her. As his body shifted with the momentum of his swing, she jabbed sharply at his exposed throat, and he croaked a gurgling breath, swinging half-heartedly again as he stumbled back and clutched at his neck. She followed his backwards movement.

_“I'm too hot, hot damn! Called a police and a fireman, I'm too hot, hot damn! Make a dragon wanna retire man-”_

She spun herself into a roundhouse, kicking the bottle from his grip, barely solidifying her stance before she advanced again, and brought up her knee sharply into his crotch. As he collapsed forwards with a wheeze, she brought her hands together, interlacing her fingers into one fist, and slammed it into the nape of his neck. He tumbled to the ground, unconscious.

 _“Girls hit your hallelujah, Girls hit your hallelujah, 'Cause uptown funk gon' give it to you-”_ she whirled on the last working speaker, and fired the last three bullets of her handgun into the exposed speaker cone, and the terrible song cut off with a spark and a puff of smoke.

She only had a moment of peace; a sudden loud splash off the side of the boat and subsequent flailing drawing her attention. Ghost jogged to the starboard side of the yacht, and sighed. Vuković was swimming frantically towards shore, his gasping breaths audible from where she stood. He didn’t appear to be a competent swimmer, and so she took her time collecting her discarded weapons, before she reached for her grappling pistol, thumbing briefly at the sharp edges of the hook.

She stood at the edge of the yacht again, and fired casually at the plump man’s floundering form. The man screeched, red blooming in the water around him, as the hook sunk into the flesh of his shoulder. Mechanically, she retracted the hook, dragging the screaming man back towards the yacht.

When he was close enough, she reached over the side, and grabbed him under his armpits, hauling him back aboard like a toddler. She dropped him gracelessly on the deck, and his eyes went wide, face growing pale as he realised he was lying in the drying blood of his men. She took a seat on the side of the yacht, stretching her legs before her and crossing her arms and ankles casually.

“Pozdrav, Marko.” She greeted him. He scrambled, pushing himself over onto his back to look at her, horrified.

“What do you want? Money? Drugs? Names?” He began to bleat near immediately, hands coming together in prayer over the blubber of his belly. “I can give you it! Anything! Please! You want the yacht? You take it, you have it, please-”

She stared at him. “Do I look like someone who wants a yacht?” She interrupted him.

“Y-yes? No! I don’t- You look like a reasonable woman! _Please…_ ” He was sniffling now, and it made her wrinkle her nose in displeasure. Where were his tears during the torture and illegal experimentation that killed ten women in the name of ‘advancements’? She had no pity for him.

“I have a question for you.” She said, and stood, pushing a single bullet into the chamber of her handgun. “Were you present at the HYDRA research facility 1348, during the winter of 89’?”

“Wh-what?” He coughed, choking on his own tears and snot. “Yes-” it was all she needed to hear, and the rest of his sentence was lost in the crack of her gunshot. Marko Vuković slumped lifelessly to the deck, surrounded by the other foul men he had once employed.

She sat back again, rocking gently with the movement of the waves against the boat.

With the work done, and the adrenaline fading from her system, she grew aware of the aches and pains across her body. Her head was still aching; throbbing down her neck, and blood was clotting at her temple and above her ear. Bruises, from the fists of the other men, were blooming on her torso, and she was bleeding from a shallow wound on her thigh, a near miss from a lucky bullet.

She made no move to treat herself.

Instead, she turned her face to the sun one last time, and eased off her seat.

Clean-up was mindless. The bodies went into the single life-raft, and she pushed it out to sea with a single hole in the bottom. It would sink to the bottom, bringing the weighed corpses with it, but not before it had travelled out of easy sight of any pleasure cruises that might happen across its path. She collected her remaining belongings; gathered the spent shell casings scattered across the deck, and paused momentarily to tip the remnants of some whiskey into her mouth, careful to avoid the jagged, sharp edges of the shattered bottle.

One of the women that had run below deck appeared for a moment, head popping up and then dipping out of sight with a squeak as she made eye contact. She sighed again. “Nisam ovdje da te povrijedim. Odvest ću jahtu na obalu i ostaviti te.” **_I'm not here to hurt you. I'll take the yacht to shore, and leave you be._** There was no response from below, but none of them came out armed and crazed, set on revenge either, and so she stood atop the prow and steered the yacht towards shore.

Free from distraction, body grown used to the edge of pain, her mind returned to what she had been avoiding. She couldn’t help but think of the glint of sun against silver when the light refracted off the water, couldn’t help but think of blue-grey eyes as a cloud drifted across the clear sky.

_Pathetic._

She was pathetic.


	9. Bucharest, 2016

**21 st April**

**Bucharest, Romania**

* * *

The scent of rotting fruit hung in the still air of the dark apartment, sickly sweet and sour. The bowl of old plums hadn’t attracted flies yet, but it was only a matter of time. No doubt if the papered-over windows were ever opened, then they’d come in force, but they remained shuttered and untouched. There was a layer of dust across everything, the kitchen appliances untouched, floorboards unswept, and the only thing that got any use was the fridge, mostly filled with half-eaten, cheap meals.

It looked as though nothing had stirred in the tiny flat for months, and it felt like loneliness was seeped into every screw and bolt, in every doorframe and peeling scrap of wallpaper.

Okay, perhaps he was projecting.

From his spot on the thin mattress, jammed right into the corner of the open plan living room, he could see the whole apartment. He preferred to have all the doors opened, so that he could look directly at the window in the bathroom and bedroom, the back door and the kitchen window all at once. It was security more than anything.

Again, his thoughts wandered to the empty spot beside him. _Inside_ him.

Without a partner – _his_ partner, the selfish, greedy part of him whispered – everything felt harder. He had forgotten the feeling of watching his own back, had forgotten what it was like to be without a second set of eyes, a second set of hands.

Old words came to him; Настроение. Слабость. **_Sentiment. Weakness._**

They were hurled at him with vicious force once, branded into his cracked mind by his original handler, every time his eyes lingered so much as a beat too long, every time his hands were a touch gentler than they should have been.

_She deserved gentle._

She deserved gentle and he had given her anything but. Part of him was already prepared for the possibility that she might not come at all, that she may have left for good, that he might never see her again. That was the part of him that had dragged the mattress out of the bedroom, and the part of him that couldn’t seem to do anything but count bullets and watch the hours slip past.

They had taken so much from him, and though it was coming back slowly, there were still bits missing. He still remembered the first time he had seen her. _That_ hadn’t been taken.

She’d been a little shorter than she was now and had been far thinner. He hadn’t, at first, actually thought her to be anything but a prisoner. They had kept her emaciated and sickly looking, and her pallor had only reinforced the image. But once they’d gotten up close; once she’d pinned him to the mat and made him bleed, he’d seen it. It was in her eyes; a green so pale it was almost white, and the most alive thing about her. They _sparked_ , they _danced_ , they _watched_ – he could remember thinking _it was over_ , looking into those eyes. They were so sure and so dangerous. Her eyes were the one thing that never seemed touched: cold and clear and _knowing_.

He could also remember her eyes in Paris.

_Fuck._

Wide and frightened and hurt. So _fucking_ hurt. She deserved gentle, and he’d been about as subtle and soft as a butter-knife in surgery.

She was so untouchable. He knew that, he had _known_ that. They grew together, bled together, killed together, and though he had fractured and splintered into confusion and terror, though he had to be put together and pulled apart time and time again, she remained a pillar. Once he had thought it was mercilessness, a cold nature, but now he knew it was just strength, a shield created and retained out of necessity. And now he knew how vulnerable she was.

He had peeled away the parts of her that were ice, and then he had driven a knife right in. _She wasn’t coming back._

_James…_

His name in her voice. It felt more right than anything else did.

* * *

There was a little market near the apartment. She would have liked it; and maybe that was why he’d chosen the flat. It was all local greengrocers and farmers selling their goods out of hand-built stalls, and it bordered a main road. It meant a large amount of foot traffic, enough that he could slip in and out unnoticed and unbothered.

It was dark now, and when he arrived, all the stalls were empty and shut. _His fault_. He’d let the day go by, trying to occupy his own thoughts and now he’d missed the market. _His fault_. The burlap of the shopping bag in his grip scratched at his palm as his grip tightened reflexively.

Part of him was a little relieved. It meant he’d now have to spend some time finding somewhere else to shop. It meant being occupied for a little longer. It meant being out of that lonely apartment for a little longer.

He wandered a little aimlessly, still keeping careful notice of his surroundings, but with no real destination in mind. It was chance he stumbled across a Lidl still open, and luck that they had fruit on display. The plums themselves weren’t as nice as the ones that they sold at the market; lacklustre and small, and some with bruises and scratches. _Chain grocery quality_ , he thought, a little disparagingly. In his youth, all fruit and vegetables had been the same quality as the farmer’s markets of today. Hormones, demand and the push for lower prices had brought down that quality of fresh produce.

His mother had grown vegetables herself. It had been relatively common back then; if you could afford land enough for a garden, then growing your own produce was just common-sense. The sepia toned memories of dirt under his nails, and his mother’s pink gardening gloves were visceral in their grip, and he awkwardly dropped the plums into a bag. He could feel eyes on him; he’d been standing too still for too long, caught in his own thoughts again.

He’d have to write down the part about his mom’s gloves. He hadn’t remembered their colour before. Usually a revelation like that would please him. Usually he’d already be scribbling away. Usually he’d wrack his brains for more.

Now it didn’t really matter. Or at least, it didn’t feel like it did.

The streets were emptier the closer he got to the flat. He’d picked a residential area, and in doing so, had been able to avoid the inevitable late-night crowds of tourists or partygoers. Besides, she had always seemed to prefer safehouses in amongst civilians. _There it was_. He was surprised he had actually managed to go so long without thinking of her. Forty-two minutes was the new record.

_His fault._

It was late enough that even the young couple two floors below him were asleep; they were students, and he’d often heard music or seen lights under their door till the early hours of the morning. It seemed they were having a relatively early night. It was technically a school-day, he reasoned, and continued his tramp up the winding staircase of the apartment block.

He let himself in unceremoniously, and he was so preoccupied with occupying himself, that it took him a beat too long to realise something was different. Slowly, he straightened from unbuckling his ankle holster and rose to face the faceless figure outlined in the dim light that came through the newspaper over the back door.

His fingers hovered over the light switch. He was suddenly unwilling to see her face. Because it was _her._ He knew the shape of her intimately, and she was _here_. She was here, but he was struck with sudden fear because he couldn’t be sure if she was here to stay, or if she was here to break it off permanently.

But it had been _so long_.

He turned on the light.

* * *

**22 nd April**

**Bucharest, Romania.**

* * *

It was precisely midnight, precisely the first minute of the twenty-second day of the month, and she couldn’t contain herself anymore. She ghosted into the apartment, through the papered glass of the tiny backdoor, and stopped still.

He wasn’t there. He wasn’t there, and the place was empty and untouched and unlived in. There was fruit rotting on the counter, and _he wasn’t there._

A slow, paralysing panic began to trickle through her. It was dulling and ice-cold. _He wasn’t there._ He had left without her, he hadn’t waited and hadn’t wanted _her._ She stared and breathed and tried to organize her thoughts. It was hopeless. She felt as if she was spinning out of control and yet her body could not, would not move.

_She should wait._

_For what? She should go._

_But if he came-_

_He won’t._

_He left._

_She should follow. She should hunt him down._

_He doesn’t want her. Clearly._

_She could just-_

_He wasn’t there._

Disorganized and unrelenting. It was like waves breaking against cliffs; half-formed thoughts and emotions shattering into foam, against a single, stony realisation. _He wasn’t there._

Footsteps sounded on the landing, and the parts of her still ruled by instinct alerted instantly. Her hand found her gun at her hip, and she waited. Was it HYDRA, come to take her back at last? Perhaps Natalia had found her again. Maybe it was-

The door opened, and he appeared.

The chaos of her conscious mind came to an abrupt, blank halt. It was like switching radio stations to static. _He was here._ He stooped, setting down a shopping bag beside himself, fingers working on his ankle holster, seemingly oblivious to her. That same part of her tutted and hissed reprimand at his inattention. She could have killed him twice by now.

She could see the second he realised he wasn’t alone, watched the way his whole body tensed and stilled, and then watched shock register across his ill-lit face. He switched on the light, and his face went blank, unreadable.

The silence stretched and yawned between them, a palpable chasm she didn’t know how to breach. She had done this. _Her fault._

They moved at the same time, unconsciously mirroring each other as they both shifted to the right; him out of the doorway, her out from behind the kitchen bench. The heavy scent of putrid fruit hung over everything, and still they were silent.

Her partner was a sharpshooter, a sniper, an artist – he didn’t miss, he didn’t falter, and he had the record to prove it. He was patient. He had always been patient. She could still remember the way he had been when they first met; the quiet determination in his steel-grey eyes, the endless repetition of simple motion, turning new syllables over in his mouth until he learnt. He was the same, fundamentally. A good soldier. A good man. Better than she deserved.

“I can leave-”

“You came-”

Their words overlapped, their usual synchronicity undermined by their time apart and the discomfiture of the atmosphere. They stopped dead; her partner’s mouth snapping shut with an audible click. He was patient and she was not so restrained.

Her nervousness, her guilt, her _longing_ made her awkward. She shifted, she looked around the empty room – looked at anything but him. “This is… nice.” The phrase was clumsy, her accent thick, and she didn’t want to know what he was thinking.

“No, it’s not.” His voice was quiet, calmer than she thought it would be, and so different from the last words he had spoken to her it was jarring. The Winter Soldier was not with her, the light in his eyes was his own. James eyed her with a wariness she knew.

She wasn’t sure what to do. “Well, the old fruit is-”

The bag next to his foot was kicked over in his sudden movement – she watched the contents of it clatter and scatter across the floor. More plums. He crossed the room to her in two, long, sure strides, and she had a second to take a breath, to take in his abrupt closeness before his hands were upon her. His hands, his lips-

He kissed her so hard it hurt.

Their teeth clacked messily, and the grip he had on her jaw and waist would bruise, and she was sure she was ruining his shirt and hurting his scalp with how tightly she was gripping him back. She lost herself in him, in the slick slide of their lips, in the desperate panting breaths he was gasping against her. Her back hit the fridge hard enough to rattle it, and something clattered from the top to the floor noisily, _but she didn’t fucking care_ -

He withdrew just as suddenly, eyes wide and hands retracting as if he had been burnt. “I’m sorry. I just-”

“Я скучал по тебе.” **_I missed you._** She finished for him, chest growing tight and warm at the palpable delight that spread across his face.

“Yeah?” He leant closer, touching his forehead to hers, so close all she could see was _him._ “Say it again…” He whispered.

“I missed you.” She said again, and laughed as he grinned. This time, she kissed him. It was soft, no more than a gentle press of her lips to his. It made his eyes flutter shut and his hands resettle on her hips, metal arm whirring faintly, comfortingly. God, it was like getting a limb back. The bits of her she hadn’t realised were missing were replaced. _Sentiment_. “And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” She murmured it against his mouth, and tugged at his hair lightly to get him to pull away. She needed him to know it. She held his gaze. “I am so sorry, моя дорогая.” **_My darling._**

“I am too.” His eyes were serious, mouth downturned. “I should never have- I’m sorry for how I reacted.”

“I hurt you.” She said solemnly, ignoring the way he shook his head. “I did. It was my fault-” she brought her fingers to his lips as he opened his mouth to argue. It _was_ her fault, and she wouldn’t allow him to shoulder blame that wasn’t his. “You know that I trust you?” Because she did. She trusted him with every single part of her, even the parts she didn’t know. That was what had hurt most: his lack of faith in _her_ faith.

“I do. I know that. I just didn’t understand _why_.” He stroked his metal fingers over the lines of her jaw and neck, until they rested above her heart. She wondered if he could feel it, if he could feel the thundering race his very presence had kicked off. “I thought you knew that I couldn’t be without you.” She slowly raised a brow, unable to help the quirk of her lips. He got her meaning, and scoffed at himself. “I guess I sent some mixed signals.” He grimaced. “Sorry for that too.”

“Don’t apologize.” She shifted into him, and wound her arms around his neck. He relaxed into her, enough that she could feel herself supporting a little of his weight. It was right. He felt right in her arms, she felt right _with_ him.

For a few moments they just held each other, still pressed against the fridge, with the rotten fruit still stinking, and the new plums still scattered around the floor.

_It was perfect._


	10. New York, 2016

**June 19 th, 2016**

**Avengers Facility, New York, USA.**

* * *

He could still taste ash in his mouth.

Steve rubbed at his damp hair, and eyed the blurry reflection of himself in his fogged up mirror. He didn’t feel any less filthy, despite his long shower and the layers of skin he must have sloughed off in the name of cleanliness. Maybe it had something to do with the screaming still echoing around in his head too. _What a shitshow._

Lagos was weeks behind him now, but Rumlow’s scarred face still swam in the forefront of his mind.

_He knew you…_

In the mirror, the blurred contours of his face could have been anyone. In the mirror, he imagined Bucky again.

_Your pal, your buddy, your Bucky._

It was like watching him fall all over again. It was debilitating, it was distracting, it was plain fucking weakness. _Knowing_ he was out there, hurting, broken – it was like he was missing an organ or something.

And it had cost more than bruises and blood.

It had cost lives.

_His fault…_

Steve abandoned the bathroom, wandering back out into the light-filled airy space he was supposed to call his own. Tony had given him rooms that overlooked the large quadrangle agents and Avengers alike used to train. Whilst he appreciated the gesture – watching people running laps was familiar, and oftentimes soothing – nothing about the ultra-modern, ultra-white rooms appealed to him.

Part of him knew it was his own fault.

The others had adapted to make it their own; even Natasha had a throw blanket or two, and Bruce had painted his own over, despite the doctor being absent more than he was present at the facility.

Steve couldn’t seem to pin down what he _wanted_. Not really. He didn’t know what colour he wanted it painted, didn’t know what kind of couch he preferred, or if a poster or a painting would add some interest to a blank wall. Part of him knew that he couldn’t make it a home. Not without- not without Bucky. It felt a little like a betrayal to make a home for himself, whilst Bucky was without one.

_I ask you accept and facilitate my partner’s return to the US._

The words of Ghost – the nightmarish spectre that often loomed in his own dreams – seemed to him, echoic of his own private musings. When Natasha spoke about her, it was with a surprising warmth he wasn’t sure she realised she was conveying, and with so much respect that Steve had made an internal distinction between the woman Natasha called family and teacher, and the assassin he was coming to realise he owed.

_We will not be found until he can return._

_He deserves forgiveness._

Aleksandrina Nikolaevna Romanov was a washed-out photograph in uniform, the power behind Natasha’s right hook, and a person who had suffered, it seemed, often for the sake of suffering. Ghost was a monster that lived in the shadows, a merciless being, the reason Rumlow was in chains, and Bucky was alive.

Steve didn’t know if Ghost deserved forgiveness, but he believed in paying his debts.

Below him, men and women in grey fatigues kept running around and around and around. _Some things never change…_

At the edge of his hearing, he picked up on a familiar string of words, and turned. Super-enhanced senses tended to do away with privacy, and usually he tried his best to tune out, or pretend he couldn’t hear or see the things he could, but this time he knew ignorance would do more harm than good.

The youngest member of his team had been torturing herself since they had returned.

Wanda’s room wasn’t far from his own – after her initial training period, after all suspicions had been cleared – she’d picked it herself. Despite the uncontrollable stirrings of unease she still managed to inspire in him, he knew it was for the best. Unmoored from her country, her brother, from her very core values, he knew she needed leadership.

_And after all, that was his schtick right?_

He tried to curb the slight bitterness to his own thoughts unsuccessfully.

Her door was open – maybe a deliberate cry for company, perhaps a subconscious one – and he had full view of her television screen from the hall. Lagos, in flames and ruin, as they had left it, played across the screen.

“ _What legal authority does an enhanced individual like Wanda Maximoff have to operate in Nigeria-?”_

Steve switched it off, and set the abandoned remote down where he had found it. Wanda didn’t react, didn’t unfurl from her hunched position at the edge of her mattress. Devoid of her strange energy, out of the red-uniform she donned, sleeves drawn up over her palms, Wanda looked her age.

“It’s my fault.” Her voice was hoarse; Steve knew she had been crying herself to sleep.

 _She was just a kid._ “That’s not true.” At his easy response, she curled into herself a little more.

“Turn the TV back on.” She finally turned to look at him. She looked wan and pale. He recognised the bone-deep guilt on her features. He’d seen it on himself before. “They’re being _very_ specific.” At this, some of her usual bite came back into her voice, accent thickening as it was want to do when her control was fraying.

“I should have clocked that bomb vest long before you had to deal with it.” It was true, whether she could accept it or not. His own failures were not hers, and yet she was baring the crux of it. He eased off the doorframe and sat beside her. The faint flurries of _warning_ sprang up at the proximity to her, but he knew to acknowledge it would only hurt her more. “Rumlow said ‘Bucky’, and all of a sudden I was a sixteen-year-old kid again in Brooklyn.” _Your Bucky._ “And people died. It’s on me.”

Wanda stared at him, eyes piercing, and even though she said she wouldn’t invade their minds again, he couldn’t help but get the sensation she was there with him. Finally, she looked away again. “it’s on both of us.” It wasn’t much of a concession, but it was better than it was.

“This job…” He paused, unsure how best to frame his thoughts. _Perhaps it would be better if she was reading his thoughts. Maybe someone else could make better sense of them. _“We try to save as many people as we can. Sometimes that doesn’t mean everybody. But if we can’t find a way to live with that, then next time…” He could hear Bucky screaming over the noise of the train, could feel frost on his face- “maybe nobody gets saved.”

How close had he been to giving up back then? _Too close._ He could still remember the errant thoughts that had crossed his mind just after Bucky slipped from his grip. He could still remember the way he had swayed for a moment, on the edge, uncertain as to whether or not he should keep holding on, or let himself fall too…

Sudden movement made him turn, and it was a mark of how tired he was that Wanda reacted first. “Vis! We talked about this…” her tone was gently reproachful, but it was enough to make the android that had just walked through the wall smile sheepishly.

Vision turned to gesture at the door. “Yes, but the door was open, so I assumed that…” He cut himself off, dropping his hand awkwardly. It was a human gesture, and beside him Wanda shook her head, disbelieving. There was a faint upturn to her lips though, the closest she’d come to smiling in days. “Captain Rogers wished to know when Mr. Stark was arriving.”

_Ah. Right._

“Thank you. We’ll be right down.” Another wave of exhaustion hit him, and he wondered if he could rescind the notion, wondered if it’d be too rude to just crawl back to his own room and go to sleep. _For someone who slept for seventy-years, he thought he’d be better rested._

“I’ll…use the door.” Vision said, strolling out of the room with a gait _just_ too smooth to be natural. He paused, and turned back to them. “Oh, and apparently, he’s brought a guest.”

“We know who it is?” Steve asked, unable to keep the note of wariness out of his voice. Knowing Tony, it could have been another scientist, a boatload of strippers, or-

“The Secretary of State.”

_Great._

* * *

Thaddeus Ross wasn’t an outwardly imposing man. Physically, at least, he looked to be another old white man in charge, in a suit that was made from tax-payer’s dollars, in front of a room of people that would do his bidding. Except Ross wasn’t standing in the Oval Office, or the Senate calling the shots – he was facing down the Avengers nonchalantly. It was this, Steve thought, that made him different.

“Five years ago, I had a heart attack…” Ross raised his arms, imitating the swing of a golf-club. “and dropped right in the middle of my back-swing. Turned out it was the best round of my life, because after thirteen-hours of surgery and a triple bypass, I found something forty-years in the Army never taught me.” He paused. Steve watched Rhodes shift expectantly, and fought the urge to do the same. Military men all had the same cadence, and Steve couldn’t help but think of Colonel Phillips. Ross didn’t make them wait for the punchline; “Perspective.”

As of yet, Steve wasn’t sure where this was going. Tony hadn’t given much of an indication either; he had silent ceded the floor to Ross, and was brooding in the corner behind him. Steve could feel his gaze on him occasionally, the back of his neck prickling. _Whatever it was, it was bad._ Tony never liked staying silent for too long.

“The world owes the Avengers an unpayable debt. You have fought for us, protected us, risked your lives. But while a great many people see you as heroes, there are some who would prefer the word vigilantes.” Ross’s eyes lingered for a moment on Wanda as he spoke. Steve felt the distinct prickling of unease. This was not a social call.

Beside him, Natasha shifted. “And what word would you use, Mr. Secretary?” Her tone was pleasant enough, and the slight smile on her full-lips screamed polite interest, but Steve knew her. And he knew she was growing just as uncomfortable as him.

Ross didn’t seem to buy her façade; his face hardened, and his light tone vanished. “How about ‘dangerous?’” Natasha didn’t drop her eyes, and neither did Ross. “What else would you call a U.S. based group of enhanced individuals who routinely ignore sovereign borders, and inflict their will wherever they choose,” _What?_ Steve looked around, hoping to find someone else irritated about the _bullshit_ Ross was spewing, “and who, frankly, seem unconcerned about what they leave behind.”

Unconcerned-

Steve looked at Wanda. She as shrinking in on herself again, black-painted nails tightening around her own arms, locking herself in and down. At the head of the table, Ross stepped aside, and the screen came to life behind him. The world map with yellow dots scattered around took him a moment to comprehend, and in that time, footage had already begun to play.

“New York.”

_Chitauri rained from the sky in some blasphemous parody of the plague, buildings crumbled, smoke rose. The streets weren’t safe. The skies weren’t safe. No one was safe. There was blood spreading and thickening in his uniform – he couldn’t feel the pain of whatever wound he had gained, he was running on adrenaline and terror. He would feel it soon. His breath came hard, but the Chitauri came down harder still-_

“Washington D.C.”

_“Who the hell is Bucky?” That pain was different. That pain was deep and raw and intangible. Cold hands around his throat, a pale face twisting in a snarl. Gunshots and fire, and a deep, deep sense of knowing. He would die here. They would all die here; trapped in a falling Helicarrier. “Help him.” The croak of a dying woman. “He knows you.” _

“Sokovia.”

_The air was thin enough to make him light-headed. Maybe it was the lack of oxygen drawing tears to his eyes as he beheld the endless expanse of sky around them. He was tired in a bone-deep way, his whole body felt like one raw bruise. It was better and it was worse; because he wasn’t alone this time. Natasha at his side trying to hide the way her breathing was shallow, bleeding visibly but still upright, a sad smile curling her lips; “There's worse ways to go. Where else am I gonna get a view like this?”_

“Lagos.”

 _“He remembered you. He got all weepy about it 'til they put his brain back in a blender. He wanted you to know something. He said to me, ‘Please tell Rogers... When you gotta go, you gotta go.’_ ”

Steve felt his body tense and jump with the need to hit something. Hard. “Okay.” He bit out, watching Wanda again. Her distress was _palpable_ , and it was a wonder she wasn’t releasing any energy as she sat and stared in mute horror at the faces of the dead on the screen. “That’s enough.” There was nothing diplomatic about his tone. Wanda ducked her head and turned away from the screen, looking very hard at the wood of the table.

Ross nodded to his lackey, who switched off the footage. “For the past four years you’ve operated with unlimited power and no supervision.” Steve forced himself to look back at the man speaking. _This was it._ Steve could feel the other shoe drop. “That’s an arrangement the governments of the world can no longer tolerate. But I think we have a solution.” The lackey handed him a thick document. Ross hefted it in his hands for a moment, looking considering. Then he moved deliberately towards Wanda, and sat it in front of her. “The Sokovia Accords.”

Wanda’s stare was still blank, seemingly uncomprehending as she picked up the accord. Rhodey seemed to notice it too, and he extended his hand. Wanda slid it towards him and recoiled back into her seat.

“Approved by one-hundred-and-seventeen countries, it states that the Avengers shall no longer be a private organization.” For the first time, Natasha moved in her seat, shifting to clasp her hands in front of her on the table. It served to let her loose hair swing slightly in front of her, shielding her expression somewhat. Her brow had creased, but her eyes had gone shuttered. “Instead, they’ll operate under the supervision of a United Nations panel, only when and _if_ that panel deems it necessary.” Ross’ pacing brought him closer and Steve felt that same urge again.

“The Avengers were formed to make the world a safer place. I feel we’ve done that.” Steve looked at Natasha again. For a moment her eyes darted to him, and then away again and her lips pursed. He didn’t know what she was trying to tell him.

Ross was unimpressed and unswayed. “Tell me, Captain, do you know where Thor and Banner are right now?” The way he said Captain felt like an insult. Steve didn’t have an answer, but he looked up to meet Ross’ eyes anyway. “If I misplaced a couple of 30 megaton nukes, you can bet there’d be consequences.” The low simmering ball of anger in his gut expanded. _Consequences._ Like he was a child. _Nukes._ Like Bruce and Thor weren’t _people._ Opposite him, Sam had started to frown.

“Compromise. Reassurance. That’s how the world works. Believe me,” Ross made another slow revolution of the room, settling in front of them all again, “this is the middle ground.”

“So, there are contingencies.” Rhodey tapped the Accords lightly as he spoke.

Ross nodded, “Three days from now, the UN meets in Vienna to ratify the Accords.” Steve twisted in his seat, and looked at Tony. He caught the flicker of the other man’s eyes, the quick movement down to the piece of tech in his grip telling Steve he’d been looking at him too. After a beat, with the feeling of a tired sigh, Tony met his gaze. “Talk it over.”

_He’d made up his mind._

Steve felt his jaw click as he clenched it tight and turned away. Ross and his lackey packed up quickly. “And if we come to a decision you don’t like?” Natasha asked, back to that unfailingly polite half-smile.

Ross paused. “Then you retire.”

Natasha’s smile bloomed as Ross kept watching her, and Steve knew just how unsettling it could be. He was unsurprised to watch Ross turn away first. The second he was gone, Natasha dropped her smile, and nodded once to herself. Just like Tony, Steve got the feeling she’d also come to a decision. Difference was, he wasn’t sure what it was.

* * *

Natasha watched Steve stand and leave the room. It hadn’t been a good time to exit, what with tensions high and arguments thrown down. Sam and Rhodey still stood in an uneasy mirror image behind the armchair, both men with arms crossed and brows furrowed – albeit Sam with more concern on his expressive face as he watched Steve go too. Wanda was still cowering, just a little, in the corner of the couch, Vision occupying the other end, still watching Wanda with a warm, quiet concern.

 _“Agendas change._ ”

That was what Steve had said.

“ _Our very strength invites challenge. Challenge incites conflict. And conflict breeds catastrophe.”_

That was what Vision offered.

_“If we can't accept limitations, we're boundaryless, we're no better than the bad guys.”_

That was Tony’s guilty conscience.

Natasha knew a lot about guilt. She also knew a lot about compartmentalization. She knew about conflict and catastrophe and agendas, and she knew that to say she agreed with them all would be foolish. Because she did, and she didn’t.

She had to sign. She had to sign, or… _retire_. Because Natasha also knew what retirement meant when it was said like that; like a threat. So, she had to sign, because if she was retired then what _she_ wanted, her _own_ agenda might slip through her fingers. As she had told Steve, _if they had one hand on the wheel, they could still steer._ Natasha wanted resources. She wanted eyes and ears. She wanted Steve to understand that to sign was to keep their heads above water.

Most of all, she wanted her. Aleksandrina.

Once – when she had been fourteen, and in the field for the first time – her mark had gotten away. It hadn’t been any fault of her own, her cover had stayed intact, but he had just _left,_ distracted by trinkets and easier, looser, _fuller_ women. Natasha had tracked him down, slowly and painstakingly. She had forced herself through snow and night to get him back, and when she’d returned to the Academy, she’d nearly lost the fingers of her left hand to frostbite.

The Matron had been torn between pride and rage, but Aleksandrina had been amused. Natasha could still picture the faint light in the woman’s eyes, the slight curl to her mouth as she listened to Natasha’s debrief. She could still hear her too, the words that had been praise as she was escorted to her room; Вы как собака с костью. **_You are like a dog with a bone._**

_Like a dog with a bone._

Defiant stubbornness was an apt descriptor for the way she fixated on targets. It was the same energy that had brought her to brawl with the other boys in her village, too small to do any damage, too young to remember much but the feeling of bruises and broken bones. It was the same force that made her the best: the best dancer, the best killer, the best Widow.

She knew what she had to do.


	11. Bucharest, 2016

**June 23 rd, 2016**

**Bucharest, Romania**

* * *

There was a definite statement in the way he held her hand now.

It was as if he had something to prove, the way he’d take her hand in hers before they stepped out of the door, just as methodically as they checked their gear. She didn’t mind. Maybe she had something to prove too.

The first couple of days after her arrival had been an awkward dance of delicacy. He’d been careful with her, and her with him – neither of them wanting to touch on the disagreement that had split them apart in Paris. It had come to a head though.

She smiled to herself at the memory – or, well, memor _ies_ – of the day and night they’d spent reacquainting themselves with each other intimately. The morning after had been the first time he’d done it; waited, palm out, expectant, for her hand at the door.

The day was slightly overcast, but still bright enough to give her partner an excuse for the baseball cap he’d shoved low on his brow. The warm fullness from breakfast was still sitting low in her belly, and the wind was soft enough that it didn’t bite at their exposed ears and noses. Bucharest was nice; relatively clean, a mash of business and tourism, neo-roman architecture and plain unassuming apartment blocks crowded together on curved streets that wound together and sprawled to form the city.

“Ce ai vrut să faci?” **_What did you want to do?_** She posed her partner the question as they crossed at the lights, in step with the other pedestrians, fingers still intertwined like another young couple she watched kiss out the front of a café opposite them.

He hummed thoughtfully, brow creasing a little. “Mai vrei să iei boluri?” **_Do you still want to get bowls?_**

The reminder made her scowl. “Nu-mi vine să cred că ai mâncat direct din oală.” **_I can't believe you've been eating straight out of the pot._** She had gone to make Ciorbă de burtă for them, a relatively simple soup, and had found out he didn’t have a single bowl, and only one spoon. He chuckled, and she sniffed, turning her nose up at him slightly. “S-ar putea să fugim, dar nu suntem animale.” **_We may be on the run, but we aren't animals._**

It made him bark a surprised sounding laugh, and the sound couldn’t help but make her smile too, though she tried hard to keep frowning. He squeezed her hand, and brought it briefly to his lips, pressing a kiss to the back of her glove. His eyes were dancing and bright. “Apologies, milady…” he said a little mockingly. “I promise to use dishes.”

“And cutlery.” She added.

“And cutlery.” He agreed. “Maybe I’ll indulge in some _metal_ forks.” She shook her head, thinking of the packet of plastic cutlery at home. “Just for you.”

She rolled her eyes, “Как ты меня балуешь, James.” **_How you spoil me, James._** He smiled again, easy and bright.

* * *

It was so… _domestic,_ shopping for bowls and spoons and forks, browsing the isles of the homeware store. Overhead some Romanian pop song was playing quietly enough to be inoffensive, and the greeter that had handed them a basket had done so with a smile. To her, they were just another young couple, buying and building a life together.

Her partner had stopped in the bowl isle, brow creased as he regarded the selections, and she felt comfortable enough to leave him there. She walked instead towards the backwall, at the array of baking goods, and ran her fingers over some silicone moulds, and tapped the wood of a chopping block. _Domestic._ She picked up a case of cupcake patty pans, and took them with her. They were pink and had little red hearts on them.

James was where she’d left him, but he’d apparently made _some_ progress, holding two different bowls at eyelevel. She lobbed the case at their basket, smiling in satisfaction as it landed with a faint thud. He turned towards her, brandishing the bowls. “Care e mai buna?” **_Which one do you like?_**

One was eggshell blue porcelain, painted and glazed with little orange and yellow dots, and the other was white with black triangles forming a geometric pattern on the outside. She had no preference. “Orice faceți.” **_Whichever one you do._ **

He groaned. “I like them both!”

She shrugged. “So, get them both.”

He gaped at her. “Te plângi de tacâmurile din plastic, dar ești fericit că ai vesela nepotrivită?” **_You complain about plastic cutlery, but you're happy to have mismatched crockery?_** He shifted both the bowls to his metal grip in order to press his flesh hand dramatically to his forehead. “And you call me an animal.”

She laughed, unable to help herself, brought to it by his absurdity. “ _James!_ Just get them both!” she shook her head at him as he grumbled audibly, but placed them in their basket.

“We don’t have an oven,” He picked up the cupcake casings curiously, and she felt her cheeks heat. _Domestic._ She would have been lying if she said she hadn’t pictured a place for them. A better place. A place with an oven, where she could bake cupcakes, a place with light and space and-

She stopped her train of thought. _Maybe something about this place was contagious._ “Sunt draguti.” **_They’re cute._** She said, instead of blurting out her silly fantasy.

It was his turn to shrug, and he put them back in the basket, and balanced in the crook of his metal arm. “Gata de plecare?” **_Ready to go?_** Her neck prickled, and she took a quick look around, at the large images of smiling people and happy families on the walls. She nodded. He waited for her to get close enough to put his arm around her, leaning into her as they approached the register.

The angle he adopted shielded both of their faces from the small security camera affixed above the cash register, and she played it up for the woman ringing their items up. She curled around him, and pressed her face into his neck and giggled like he had said something funny. It made the woman smile warmly at them.

The bowls clinked together lightly with every step he took and that was the only reason she realised he had stopped behind her. She turned, question alighting and dying on her lips as she followed his eyes to the display front of the electronics store opposite. On several of the television screens, footage of smoking rubble and fiery explosions was playing on various news stations. It took her a moment to place the building.

“Это UN...” **_That’s the UN…_** She said quietly. Her partner was frowning again. Unease roiled in her gut, and she stepped towards him, taking _his_ hand. She tugged at him slightly. “Мы должны вернуться.” **_We should get back._** The footage wasn’t live, which meant that whatever had happened had happened in the last couple of days. _Shit._ She should have been watching the news.

Her partner nodded. “Нам нужно добыть еду для ...” **_We need to get food for…_** He trailed off, expression growing stony. He was clearly as unsettled as she was. She trusted her instincts, and with evidence of his own unease, she knew something must have been seriously wrong. “Мы сделаем это быстро.” **_We’ll make it quick._** He said finally, decisively.

“Магазин.” **_The market._** She agreed.

The mood was broken, and the sky seemed to darken with it. It was an effort for her to restrain her steps, trying to keep a sedate pace. From the tight grip he had on her hand, she thought he must have been similarly frustrated. _They were exposed out here, exposed by their lack of knowledge._ Vienna wasn’t far away.

* * *

They separated when they made it to the market, but she made sure she could see him, from where she was buying bread. It was a task to pull a smile on her face for the baker, who knew her well enough to call hello.

She looked up and met his eyes through the swinging flaps of the stall’s tent. _In and out, in and out, in and out._ The corner of his lips turned up a little, just on the edge of encouragement and reassurance. She tried to do the same and failed. She was getting anxious. It was turning her to ice, it was hardening her expression, bunching her muscles. The baker’s smile slipped as she handed him the money. She wanted to slip into the Grey, out of sight and out of mind, just until she could figure out-

Sirens from the street made her hand fly to her belt, to the knife she had stowed, grip tightening so much on the bread that it crumbled and compressed. She met his gaze again, and he was frowning. His quick nod was relief. She hurried back towards him, rounding the stalls a little too quickly, but unwilling to be separated for any longer. His mouth thinned, but his touch was gentle as he extracted the mangled bread from her grip. He put it in their bag, atop the bowls and cutlery and plums. _Get a hold of yourself._

This time, he didn’t take her hand. They fell into step in unison, strides matched, heads down. They were about to cross the road towards the flat, when another siren began to wail towards them. Instinct made her stop again, and she tracked the path of the orange emergency vehicle down the street and out of sight.

Her partner had turned and stilled.

He was looking at something out of the corner of his eye, and under the guise of reaching for the bag in his grip, she followed his eyes. The man that ran the newsstand in the centre of the square was staring at them. The way his eyes widened further with something like fear made her heart pick up. “Солдат.” **_Soldier._** Her voice came out cold and quiet.

“Я знаю.” **_I know._**

The man stood, and as her partner took a step towards him, began to scramble backwards. She moved with him, wrapping her fingers around his wrist as they crossed the road towards the newsstand. The man stumbled from the stand, leaving the door wide open behind him, and the paper he’d been reading open on the counter.

Her skin thrummed with energy and warning, prickling in her fingers. She wanted to disappear and run, and take him with her. _They needed to go, they needed to get out-_

Her partner flipped the paper over and her heart stopped.

**_They needed to go._ **

* * *

“Я не понимаю.” **_I don’t understand._**

Her partner looked at her, face stiff and blurred by the Grey. She readjusted her grip on him as they rounded the corner to the street. “Как они...?” **_How did they…?_** She waved a hand at his face. The blurry image looked too much like him to be anything but deliberate.

“Это не трудно.” **_It’s not hard._** His voice was tight. “Я видел это раньше.” **_I’ve seen it done before._**

They took the back entrance to the flat, still invisible. In the distance, she could hear the whirring of helicopter blades, and wondered if they would send police or special forces. She was cold, chilled to her core, but clear headed for it. If they were quick and quiet, they could make it out. They _had_ to make it out. “Пять минут.” **_Five minutes._** She told him, and he nodded once. When they made it into the stairwell, she released the Grey, trying to save her energy. She’d need it for their escape.

They were whisper quiet on the stairs, and free from the dulling of the Grey, she could hear vehicles pulling up in the street below. She turned to look over the railing as he pulled out their keys, running quick calculations. It would take an average man longer to climb to their level than it took them. add in heavy gear and artillery-

“Кто-то внутри.” **_Someone is inside._**

Her partner’s voice was low, and she turned back to him. A muscle was jumping in his jaw, but his eyes were a familiar hardened steel. Her instincts screamed, her body wanted to _flee_ \- But there were things he needed in there. His books, his bags, their weapons.

She curled her fingers over his shoulder, and they phased through the door together.

* * *

The man with the shield stood with his back to them, unaware and distracted.

_Steven Grant Rogers, born July 4 th 1918 to Sarah and Joseph Rogers. Brooklyn born and raised. Allergic to peppers. Orphaned at 18. Ex-asthmatic. Fond of ketchup and mustard on hot-dogs. Talented artist. A righteous man._

“Understood.” His voice was sudden and loud in the silence of the room. Beside her, her partner shifted in place. It made Rogers’ head snap up and around. He was holding her partner’s book.

For a moment, they were all still. She watched his eyes jump between them, watched the surprise and uncertainty play in his clear eyes. She had forgotten just how blue they were.

“Do you know me?” His voice was tremulous.

Her partner swayed, and swallowed. He nodded slightly. “You’re Steve. I've read about you in a museum.” He sounded…dazed. Neither of them had expected to see Rogers again – not so soon, and not like this.

Movement from outside caught her attention. _They were running out of time._ She twitched, eyes going to the hidden gun on top of the fridge, and when she tried to take a step Rogers threw up his hand. “I know you’re nervous, and you have plenty of reason to be.” He was addressing _her_ , eyes round and serious and a little placating. He edged towards them, and her partner shifted towards her. She couldn’t help but be thankful for it. 

“We weren’t in Vienna.” Her partner’s voice was stronger this time, maybe with defensiveness, maybe with the adrenaline she knew had to have been pumping through him. Outside, more flickers of action, and something flittered past their papered windows. “We don’t do that anymore.”

At the edge of her hearing, she caught the bang of the stairwell door opening, and heavy tread echoing up the brick. _They were in the building._

“Well, the people who think you did are coming here now.” Rogers responded in kind, stepping towards him. Her partner took a step away, and she looked to the fridge again. “And they’re not planning on taking you alive.”

“That’s smart.” Her partner shifted again, and Rogers mirrored him, seemingly unconsciously. It left her way to the fridge clear, and slowly she moved. “Good strategy.”

Footsteps sounded above them, and she looked back at her partner. “Будет драка.” **_It will be a fight._** She told him. The sound of her voice seemed to remind Rogers of her existence – she could see the way he registered her shift in position, the way he angled himself so that he could keep his eyes on both of them. His face had grown wary.

“This doesn’t have to end in a fight, Buck.” Rogers’ voice wasn’t convincing. Feet sounded on the landing outside the door, and she met her partner’s eyes.

“It always ends in a fight.” He set down their bags, and the clink of porcelain and his weary tone made something crack in her chest. _Had he not suffered enough?_ He pulled off his gloves, and his metal fingers shone in the lowlight. Rogers attention went to the window, and she stepped towards the fridge. “Ты должен идти.” **_You should go._** He wasn’t looking at her, but his words were deliberate. Ice gripped her heart.

“Я не оставлю тебя.” **_I’m not leaving you._** She reached for the gun and Rogers looked between them, brow furrowed.

His voice was tired; “Я знаю.” **_I know._**

“Buck-”

The window cracked, and the door shuddered, and the fight began.


	12. Bucharest, 2016

**June 23 rd, 2016**

**Bucharest, Romania.**

* * *

The window was shattered inwards under the force of the stun grenade that was lobbed through, glass sprinkling through the air in a deadly arc. They moved reflexively, the Captain deflecting the grenade with force into the wall, and she leapt for the gun. As her fingers closed around the smooth grip, a second grenade came through the other window.

It landed at her partner’s feet, and smoothly, he kicked it from himself, sending it skidding across the floor. Rogers slammed his shield over it, and it went off harmlessly underneath the metal. Her partner was already moving, hefting their mattress over his head to deflect the third grenade. Their door shuddered with a loud bang, and she knew it wasn’t strong enough to withstand another blow from a battering ram. She could see a silhouette rapidly approaching the window; a man on a cable, and as the Captain turned at the sound of the door, she raised her weapon. Across the room, her partner threw their table at the narrow entranceway, pinning the door in place for just another moment.

As the first two men came crashing through the window, she fired at the one closest to her. It was a precise shot, not one to kill, but one to debilitate, and he went down with a cry, clutching at his shoulder.

“NO!” Rogers swiped at her, horrified, and she snarled at him wordlessly, ducking under his reaching arm to avoid him. Her partner was already engaged with the other, and she watched him throw the man across the room. The backdoor opened, and Rogers turned, shield up. Her partner crossed the room in three short strides. Rogers gripped the barrel of the first rifle through, and forced it up, and in the opening he had made, her partner kicked the man right back out of the door.

“Buck, stop!” Rogers grabbed his hand, but her partner was faster and reversed the grip. Rogers was panting, wild-eyed. “You’re going to kill someone!”

She had heard enough. She reached for Rogers, catching the hard edges of the shield support on the back of his uniform and _pulled_. He came crashing down with a stuttered gasp, and she loomed over him. His eyes went wide with a sudden fear. She could see herself reflected in his blown pupils, pale and savage looking. She reached _through_ the wood beside his head and bared her teeth. “ _He_ won’t kill anyone.”

She pulled out her partner’s rucksack, and tossed it to him. He turned, and lobbed it from the building. Movement behind her made her spin, and she reflexively phased out, even as her partner reached for her, his hands going right through her uselessly. The bullets bounced sharply off the bulk of his metal bicep, tearing through his jacket, but before she could move to phase him out too, the Captain had risen to his feet and had thrown up his shield – over the _both_ of them.

For one wild second, she met his blue eyes, gunfire pinging loudly off the impenetrable shield. There was no anger in his eyes, no resentment, just a determination she realised she had seen before. It was a look her partner often wore.

Then she grabbed at him again, hands solidifying against his chest, and she threw him from her. Her throw was true; he went careening, shield first, into another gunman. They went toppling out of the window, and she was freed to assist her partner.

He was advancing on another enemy; hand raised to deflect the spray of bullets the man was sending his way. As he made it close enough to grab him; lifting him in a show of strength with his flesh hand, one of the other men rose unsteadily from his sprawl across the floor. She pounced.

Head turned, gun trained on her partner, fingers on the trigger, his reaction to her approach was too slow. She kicked at the barrel of the weapon, sending the spray of bullets into the ceiling, and as he yelped in surprise, already trying to regain control of the weapon, she spun, throwing her whole weight into the air and behind her other foot. It was harder to gain traction in such a small space, but she was trained well, and she was better and stronger than all of _them-_

Her kick sent him flying back into the thin wooden door of their closet, and it crumpled inwards with the force of his impact.

Grunting from outside the flat told her the Captain was still occupied, and she reached for her partner who had turned to her. He stretched his hand out as well, and their fingertips brushed for a moment, before the heavy bang of a shotgun pierced the hinges of their front door. Something like a snarl marred his face, and in the beat of silence between the last shell firing and the men outside getting ready to storm the flat, he whirled and punched right through the door.

It gave way under the force of the blow, and as he kept moving, shaking the door from his wrist, she flitted into the space between his body and the stairwell, invisible.

The first man she sent tumbling down the stairs let out an aborted cry of surprise, and when she appeared suddenly to punch another, his eyes went wide with shock. It was an expression she knew well. Behind her, she could hear the thud of metal on flesh, as her partner engaged the two last men standing.

With a battle cry, one of the men still coming up the stairwell opened fire. She watched him empty his clip into the wall behind her coolly and tilted her head to consider him as he stared at her. The crash of glass above her spared him; it drew her attention up, up to where another man had come through the small sunroof, firing as he went. Her partner was quick, and grabbed him as he came, causing enough slack in his safety-rope to toss him into the wall like a doll. The cold part of her was laughing; who did they think they were?

They were not some petty criminals – they were fucking _legends._

She made to climb the steps again, trying to get her hands on her partner; if she could phase them out then they could get out – but more gunfire, and feet behind her forced her to turn to the men approaching her from behind. _What didn’t they get about her abilities?_ They were shooting at her with no rest, and she was pinned in the corner, unable to get close enough to disable them, unable to move up the stairs.

The creak and whip-snap of rope preceded her partner’s graceful leap from the story above, and he landed solidly _on_ the man closest to her. It was all the break she needed, and she sprang forwards, passing right through her partner and the next man he was dispatching, and into the face of the next. She grabbed the ridge of his tactical goggles and used it as a handhold to bring his face into her knee, clambering over his unconscious body like an animal, forgoing grace for speed.

Ghost met the next man with a scowl, tugging the weapon out of his grip with a sharp pull, and as he took a step back, she advanced, reaching for his head, intending to slam it into the wall. A hand darted out as she reared back with him, stopping her dead. It was the Captain, with a face like thunder.

“Не надо!” **_Don’t!_** His Russian was sloppy, but the sound of it surprised her enough to let him go. Behind him, her partner was advancing, and she met his eyes. His own darted to the void of the stairwell meaningfully, and she nodded once. The Captain blinked, looked behind him to see what she was staring at, but it was too late. She phased through him, ignoring his grunt of surprise, and leapt into space.

Her partner caught her solidly around the middle with his flesh hand, and the momentum of her jump carried them diagonally over the railing of the next floor. He grunted as he landed, releasing her and the metal railing he’d torn out of the stairs to slow their descent. They were set upon again immediately, and she barely had time to phase out again as she was shot at. Her partner reached through her gauzy form, and pulled the man towards him, leaving her to face the next alone.

She dropped and spun, kicking the man’s legs out from under him and causing him to tumble down the stairs. She was still crouched as the sound of a rifle’s safety going off sounded, and she watched helplessly as one of the special-police aimed at her partner. _She wasn’t close enough to-_

With a hum preceding the speed of it’s passing, the Captain’s shield rocketed towards the gunman and knocked him over, resounding with enough force to lodge itself in the thin plaster of the opposite wall. She stared, breath catching in her throat, and looked from the Captain to her partner. They were looking at each other, caught in some memory, and she knew they were running out of time. _That was too close._

“Солдат!” **_Soldier!_** She snapped at him, drawing his eyes to her. She stood, listening, waiting. More were approaching. She pointed to the ground beneath her feet. “На пять меньше.” **_Down by five._** He swallowed and nodded and then hefted himself up on the railing. Ghost paused long enough to watch the Captain suck in a terrified breath at the sight of his old friend getting ready to jump, before she let herself sink through the man at her feet and the cement below her.

_One, two, three, four, five-_

She melted through the floors at a dizzying speed, and it was only years of experience that stopped her from crying out as she collided harshly with the floor, solidifying so quickly it _hurt._ Her partner let out an aborted sound as he caught the railing with his metal hand to stop his descent, and she imagined the way it must have pulled at the sensitive connected tissue at his shoulder. He hauled himself over the railing as she stood unsteadily. She had winded herself, and fought to take actual breaths as she turned to him.

He grabbed at her hand, and she curled her fingers around his and pulled them into the Grey and through the door of the closest apartment. Gunfire burst from behind them, but it didn’t matter, because there was a window ahead, and they were picking up speed, and they crested the balcony and _jumped-_

She released him at the peak of their leap, knowing they’d need the momentum of actual mass to carry them across the divide, and realised with a thrill of panic, that she wasn’t going to make it-

Her partner collided heavily with the cement lip of the building, and she stretched out her fingers, scrabbling at the cement for a breathless moment before his metal hand clamped around her wrist. They both cried out; him with the effort of catching and holding her weight, and her as the bones in her wrist were crushed painfully. She could feel that one had splintered, probably her scaphoid, and bit down on her tongue as he pulled her over the ledge with him, pain shooting up her arm.

He rolled over the side, arms coming around her to clutch at her as she fell on him. She panted briefly into his neck, digging her nails into the plates of his metal arm, before she released him to stand. She was growing exhausted; both with the efforts she had exerted, the constant phasing in and out, and the fallout of the close call.

Still, she ran as he did, and it was a mark of her growing tiredness that she didn’t notice the shadow above them until it was too late. A blur of black and silver collided with her partner, sending him tumbling to the ground, and causing her to trip up over him. They rolled in a brief, confusing tangle of limbs, both of them desperate to get their eyes on the new enemy.

She righted herself with a palm to the pavement in a half-crouch, and stared. It was a man; a man in a black suit, with claws and…and _ears?_ As she watched, unable to keep her mouth from falling half-open, the man shifted into a ready stance, claws lengthening and shoulders tensing.

Her partner moved first, swinging at the man, only to be caught and shoved away in a surprising show of strength. The new opponent moved with a lethal kind of grace, oddly feline in his movements, and as she stood and caught her breath, she could tell he had been trained well.

He caught her partner with a solid kick to the chest, and she leapt for him, catching his attention with a roundhouse that caught him off balance. Her foot smarted; the suit was harder than it looked, somehow holding the feel of armour despite moving like a second skin. He whirled on her, faster than she expected, and was too slow to phase out, as he caught her by the collar and threw her. She went flying through the air, and straight through the metal of the power-units, and past her partner who was struggling to his feet. She rolled to a stop, phasing back into being and letting out a pained gasp. She touched at the torn collar of her shirt, and her fingers came away red where his claws had cut into her chest.

She righted herself, and turned at the loud whirring of a helicopter, in time to see the navy-suited figure of the Captain hurtling towards her. Heavy artillery fire from the helicopter forced her to stop and phase out, gritting her teeth as the concrete burst and shattered around her. It was growing painful now, the old ache of pushing herself too hard making her breathless again, straining her already bruised chest.

Her body screamed, and she cried out involuntarily with the effort of holding herself phased out. Her partner was on the ground, that black-suited _freak_ trying to claw at him, clearly intent on slitting his throat. _She had to get up, she had to get to him, they had to get out-_

Like someone had heard her prayers, the helicopter’s engine let out a whine of protest, and the gunfire moved up and away from her in a crazy tilt. She looked up, in time to catch the flash of a familiar winged figure soaring gracefully away from the helicopter.

 _Sam Wilson_.

She almost smiled.

Distracted by the gunfire, the man in the black-suit had diverted his attention just long enough for her partner to regain the upper hand, and she hauled herself to her feet as he looked to her. He was hesitating, and the black-suited cat-man was getting to his feet again. “ _Go!”_ she barked, and began to run, even though she knew she wouldn’t reach him in time. He didn’t look back a second time, scooping his abandoned rucksack from the ground mid-stride. The cat-man had started after him, and though she knew it was helpless, she kicked off after the pair of them, breath sawing in her chest.

They disappeared over the lip of the building, and she was forced to pause. She couldn’t make a drop like that, not like her partner could – she wasn’t as sturdy as he was. Feet behind her made her turn and lash out instinctively, teeth bared at whoever had tried to attack her.

The Captain ducked out of the way of her swing, eyes wide again. For a beat, they just looked at each other. _They were getting away_. “Get me down there.” She barked at him, and he blinked – and then charged her, forcing her off her feet – and over the edge of the building.

It felt wrong to fall without her partner, and her instincts screamed to escape his foreign grip as they fell, unable to trust the hold of a man she didn’t know. His grip was too loose – maybe he was suffering a similar aversion, and when they landed, the impact jolted her loose and she went skidding over the concrete, shirt doing little to protect her back. The distinct sound of metal against gravel grated on her ears as her spinal implants were dragged along the cement, and she forced herself to her feet shakily.

Her partner, the man in black, and the Captain had already gained ground away from her. Below her, she could feel the rumble of cars, and watched as the three men disappeared over the edge of the overpass they had landed on. She took a shuddering breath, and let herself fall again.

The light faded instantly as she fell into the middle of the three-lane underpass, and there was the loud squeal of tires as a car swerved to avoid hitting her. She reached out as it passed her, wobbling over the lanes, as the driver wrestled with the wheel. She clambered up the bumper to the roof, trying to keep her balance as the car picked up speed again.

Ahead of her, she watched her partner drop from the overpass, another car doing a similar manoeuvre to avoid him, and she rose to her full height to leap from the car she was on to the next, as he began to run, and the two forms of the cat-man and the Captain landed behind him. She wasn’t as close as them, but she leapfrogged cars until she was nearly on the Captain’s heels, and then jumped again.

Her ankles ached at the force of her collision with the concrete, but she ignored the pain and pushed herself into a sprint after the cat-man. He was too fast for a human, and she felt a dull sort of worry. _What fresh creation was he? Was he HYDRA? Was he a Soldier like them?_

The Captain was gaining on her, but she didn’t spare him a look, even as his rapid approach sent alarm through her system. _He was not the target anymore,_ she reminded herself, _he was not the current threat._ She fixed her gaze on the black-suit chasing her partner, and pushed herself harder. They were moving faster than the cars, unbound by the speed limit of the underpass, but she was growing tired, and she wasn’t as fast as them.

Behind her, she could hear sirens approaching, and as the Captain out paced her, she skidded to a halt and turned.

“ _STAND DOWN!”_ A tinny, accented cry from the speaker of the police-car was her cue, as the black vehicle bore down on her. She could see the driver’s eyes going wide behind the tinted windshield as they realised she wasn’t going to move. “ _STAND-”_ She flipped up, at just the right moment, her own momentum making her tumble up the bonnet of the car and over the windshield, the force of her impact cracking the windshield in a spider’s web, and she just managed to jam her fingers into the lip of the roof over the glass, and held on.

The car was advancing on the Captain now, and she caught his eye as he turned to look at it. It was instinct to extend her hand to him as the car swerved towards him, and he jumped towards her, carried with unnatural, super-human grace. His fingers wrapped around her forearm, and she caught him by his stiff forearm bracers, and for a moment, held his full weight as he curled his legs up in a mid-air crunch – and kicked in the driver’s side window. She grunted with the effort, losing her grip on the roof as the car came to a screeching halt. The Captain dropped back to the ground and tugged open the door, hauling the unconscious driver from the wheel, and swinging himself into the seat.

She phased through the car, dropping into the empty passenger’s seat and making him startle. He looked away from her quickly, and pressed on the gas, squinting through the shattered window. With wince as the motion jarred her aching shoulder, she extended her leg awkwardly from under the dash, and kicked out the windshield to free his vision. It went flying off behind them, with a loud shattering noise as the glass went tinkling across the cement.

He drove recklessly fast, weaving through the traffic with a skill borne from enhanced reflexes. They passed the black-suited man, and were nearly at her partner, when a loud thud sounded from the back of the car. She whipped around and watched as the man hauled himself into a standing position on the bumper. _Fuck._ The Captain whipped the wheel around, trying to dislodge him, and she clutched at the door handle to stay still. It did nothing.

“Sam, I can’t shake this guy.” The Captain seemingly spoke to no-one, but this close to him, she could finally see the small comms unit in his ear, and hear Wilson's tinny response.

_“Right behind you!”_

More sirens filled the air, and the blue flash of German police lights reflected off the rear-view mirror and the smooth side of the Captain’s cowl. He was too busy keeping half an eye on the road ahead and half on the man still clinging to the car that he didn’t see how close the police were, so she clenched her jaw, and reached for the wheel.

He let out a wordless cry of surprise as she wrenched the wheel to the left, cutting off a police vehicle that threatened to overtake them, and as the momentum forced the cat-man to the other side, she jerked the wheel again. It made the cat-man nearly lose his grip, and she hissed in frustration, even as the motion had forced another car off the road. The Captain slammed a hand into her chest with a glare, forcing her to thud back over to her side of the car. She opened her mouth – to swear, to yell, she wasn’t sure – but then _he_ suddenly twisted the wheel.

The car went flying through the barricade, sending chunks of heavy sand flying as barrels burst. Behind them, the rest of the cars screeched and skidded as they tried to avoid hitting each other; and she realised the Captain had followed her partner’s mad leap over the barricade. He was still running, directly at oncoming traffic, and she leant forwards in her seat, heart in her throat as she watched a motorcyclist flying towards him with no hope of stopping in time.

Her partner adjusted his stride, took a tiny step to the side, stooped – _and picked up the motorcycle by a single handlebar._ It flew into the air with its own momentum, the driver falling off and out of the way, and she had never been so in awe of her partner’s strength as she watched him manhandle the bike up and around. It flew in a full revolution, brought back down to earth with the force of his metal grip, and in tandem, he used the weight of it to assist an almost delicate jump; neatly swinging himself into the saddle as it thudded to the ground. The tires squealed as he kicked it off away from them.

Her mouth went dry, and as the Captain floored the car to keep up, and out of the corner of her eye she noticed his own wide-stare. Despite the madness, and the adrenaline and the fear, she couldn’t help but smile a little smugly. _He was a fucking legend._

A thud from the roof alerted her to the movement of their unwanted passenger. “What is _with_ this _guy?_ ” The Captain muttered, eyes darting between the roof and the road. She heaved herself forwards desperately, squirreling out of the space where the windshield had been and tried to grab the man as he jumped. Her fingers missed him by inches, and she had to watch as he soared towards her partner with lethal intent.

She shouldn’t have worried. Her partner turned, keeping the bike steady, and caught the man by the throat. She could hear his wet croak of surprise from here and felt a savage satisfaction. She knew _exactly_ how that felt. The man flipped himself out of her partner’s grip using the wall as a resounding board, and the bike tilted crazily with the motion. Her partner’s metal sent sparks flying across the cement with the friction, as he kept the motorbike from totalling with his strength alone. With a savage kick, he finally sent the suited man flying and righted the bike.

He looked over his shoulder at her, arm outstretched, and though the Captain let out another cry, she rose to her feet on bonnet of the car, took two running steps and _jumped._

It was messy; the motorbike almost tipped over again as she clung to the flesh of his bicep with all her might, and he hauled her close. They swerved and dipped, and she desperately swung a leg over his waist, pinning herself between him and the handlebars. They dug painfully into her back, but the sensation was drowned by the sight over his shoulder.

Wilson was flying towards them, heedless in his flightpath, too focussed on shaking the black-suited man, who was _clinging_ to him, using him, and because Wilson wasn’t looking where he was going, they were gaining too quickly-

Her partner unclipped a small explosive from his belt and flung it up, just as they passed out of the roof of the underpass. The resulting explosion caused the cement roof to crumble and crack, and rubble exploded outwards.

A black blur came towards them, and she could do nothing but suck in a startled breath as the black suited man twisted unnaturally, righting himself with deadly purpose, and though he was falling – he managed to outstretch his arm and slash at the back of the bike.

The motorbike gave out, the wheel popped, and she locked her fingers around her partner and phased them out before they were carried into the wreckage. They tumbled and rolled with the black suited man, and her head cracked sharply on the cement, blurring her vision and making her stomach roil crazily.

By the time she had stopped skidding along the road, and her vision cleared, the black suited man had already regained his footing. He took a step towards her fallen partner and she shoved her scraped palms beneath her and heaved herself upright desperately-

The Captain appeared from seemingly nowhere, her head swimming as she watched him collide with the black suited man and knock him off his feet, away from her partner. She hurried towards him, gripping his shoulder – half to help him up, half to lean on him. More police cars poured from the underpass around them, the helicopter appearing above them, and she felt her stomach sink as she realised they were surrounded.

From the sky, a bolt of metal and grey descended, landing with a thud opposite them. It was one of Stark’s creations, she recognised the distinctive look, though the heavy artillery on the metal-suit’s shoulders were standard military grade. With an electronic whir, the metal-suit raised its arms, and pointed its blasters at the Captain, and at the black-suited man.

“Stand down. Now.” The voice was metallic but human, and she realised with a start that it was being operated. _She didn’t know that Stark had loaned out his suits._ Guns were cocked, men were shouting, and the suit’s weapons were focussed unerringly upon them. The Captain – who had angled himself between her partner and the cat-man – lowered his shield just slightly. She wanted to scream at him to keep his defences up. _This couldn’t be it – it wasn’t over, they had to get away, had to run-_

Her hand slid slowly down her partner’s arm, and she intertwined their fingers.

“Congratulations, Cap.” The suited man spoke again, and the Captain put his shield back onto it’s brace on his back. “You’re a criminal.” She squeezed her partner’s hand once in warning, and then, with the last of her energy reserves, pulled them into the Grey and out of sight.

For two steps, they were free again. For two steps, she felt hope fill her belly. For two steps, her partner was with her and were running-

Something hit her square in the back, and then her world went white.


	13. Berlin, 2016

**June 23 rd, 2016**

**Bucharest, Romania**

* * *

Whatever hit his partner sent an electric charge up his own arm, and he released her involuntarily at the sharp pain that made the circuits short. She reappeared as he did, and he dove for her, heart leaping into his throat at her convulsions.

The tiny winking device had come from the gauntlet of the newest arrival, sleek and metallic like the rest of his suit of armour. It had lodged just under her largest implant, and whatever it was doing had completely obliterated her control.

Her eyes had rolled up into her head, and her breath was coming short and tight, jaw locked. As he tried to roll her shaking body over to get rid of it, hands descended upon him, and more of the German forces appeared over her. He tried to rip himself free, and reach for her, wordless panic and rage robbing him of speech as they dragged her bodily out of his reach.

It was only after they had snapped a thick collar around her limp neck did he stop resisting. A distant cold was threatening to encroach upon him at the sight. It was too similar to the collar HYDRA had given her. He was forced down onto the ground, head turned roughly away from her. The angle required him to watch Steve being handcuffed, and another bolt of helpless fury made him sag under the knees in his back, against his throat.

_He should have just run, he should never have picked Bucharest, he should have listened to her, he should have been less sentimental, he should not have frozen when he saw Steve, he should-_

Regret, immeasurable and innumerable.

The man in the black-bodysuit removed his helm, and even though the sight of the Prince of Wakanda was shocking, it did nothing to ease the slow build of nauseating resignation.

_Technically a king now, with his father dead._

And he and his partner were going to be punished for it.

* * *

**June 23 rd, 2016**

**Berlin, Germany**

* * *

She returned to consciousness slowly, primed with sharp stabs of pain that filtered into her awareness and forced her eyes to open.

The transport she was in had the lights dimmed, but for the sterile illumination of the fluorescent directly above her. She was in a cage. It was glass and she turned-

No. _No._

Her head, her arms, her legs and her torso were all held down to the metal seat, and as she squirmed with the evolutionary instinct to _move,_ panicked at the loss of motion, she became aware of the cold and wet splashing sound her feet made on the floor. They’d taken her shoes and left her barefoot in water up to her ankles. The thick metal straps around her wrists, shins, chest and forehead were just as unforgivingly cold. She phased-

White-hot pain raced through her body with the volts of electricity that forced her to solidify. The water was conducting a live charge around the whole cell; even if she could get out of the restraints, she couldn’t escape it.

She gritted her teeth as the feeling faded, limbs twitching weakly, and squinted into the darkness beyond the cage. There were German special police lining both walls, with weapons trained upon her – and no sign of her partner.

_Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck-_

She swallowed down the hysteria rising in her chest.

_If they had-_

_She would-_

No.

_Stay calm. Control yourself._

First, the facts;

She was in a moving vehicle, most likely on her way to, or already _in_ Germany. She could not move – _ignore the panic it caused, focus_ – and could not get out. They were being blamed for bombing the UN. Someone had pretended to be her partner. Her partner was not with her.

Then, the goal;

Get out of the cage. Find her partner. Get out of the county. Track down the imposter.

She closed her eyes against the harsh light. It was exacerbating the ache in her skull, and scattering her thoughts. Below her, the truck was slowing, she could feel the engine’s vibrations easing slightly. _Think._ She needed to _think._

Whoever had framed her partner had a reason beyond the obvious. The obvious being an easy scapegoat. Why not implicate a man who had already done things in a similar vein? But no – that was not it, it _couldn’t_ be it.

A creak of machinery and the sudden sloshing of the water at the bottom of her cage made her open her eyes again. They were unloading her like cargo, a fork-lift-like machine attaching itself to the back of her cage and lifting it out of the vehicle. The space outside was huge; a massive open plan warehouse-garage, and though it was well lit, she could tell they were underground.

The men that had been in the vehicle with her shadowed the forklift’s slow trundle towards an industrial sized lift at the back of the room. They were muttering to themselves, and she kept catching the flash of their eyes upon her. As she was backed into the lift, she caught sight of another armoured vehicle arriving, and it parked next to her own. _He was here._ The lift doors slid shut slowly, but not before she had caught sight of another fork-lift approaching the vehicle. _He was in a cage like her._

Was it about the cage? She closed her eyes again as the lift began to move. Was the goal to capture them? With such a public target, at a time of such heightened tension, they should have expected the whole world to take notice. If that were the case, then why, because it would have made it harder for whoever was on the video footage to get to them first. The governments of the world, especially Germany, had most likely leapt upon this case. They should have expected them to fall into the custody of-

Oh.

_Oh._

Her eyes flew open, and she met the gaze of the man closest to her. He flinched, but she made no effort to dull the suspicion and anger that was no doubt written across her face. HYDRA had clung to life in the Western world through deceit and infiltration. They had brought down the world’s top organization from within. It was not a stretch to think that they had infiltrated the Security Council too.

Whoever was after them was already here.

* * *

“Has she said anything yet?”

Natasha didn’t look up from the small screen to look at Tony. She wasn’t sure she trusted her features to be blank, removed. They had her collared and caged, and it was making her angrier than she had thought. “No. And she won’t.”

Tony snorted, and she finally raised her eyes to him. He was looking at the small live-feed of Aleksandrina too, though his eyes were harder than her own, and there was no trace of humour on his face. “Well she’d better; something tells me the Germans won’t take kindly to silence.” He shook his head.

“When is her lawyer getting here?” Natasha looked around for someone to bully into the answers she wanted, and Tony’s eyebrows flew up. “What?”

“A lawyer? You’re worried about her _legal_ rep? Christ, Natasha – she tried to kill you, and now she’s blown up the UN.” Tony tilted his head, considering. Natasha could see his clever eyes working to decipher the strangeness of her behaviour. Tony didn’t know about Aleksandrina, didn’t know about their past, their familial connection. The impulse that had driven her to tell Steve and Sam had not extended to anyone else, and the way Tony was acting about the accords made her think to do so would be dangerous. Tony was not a cruel man, but she would not put it past him to abuse the knowledge. So, she shrugged, and looked away from him again.

Aleksandrina had her eyes closed. If not for the slight rise and fall of her chest, she would have looked like a corpse; further washed out by the harsh light of the fluorescents. A small part of her revelled in the chance to examine her without comment. Now she had time to study the other woman’s face and pick out the things that made them so alike.

Tony gave up; “I’m going to go get Cap to sign.” He moved away from her without waiting for a reply. Perhaps he could sense that she would tell him it would prove to be an impossible task. Steve would not sign – for the very reasons that she had. She didn’t need to look at her friend to know he would be looking at James’ live-feed with much the same intensity as her.

The lawyer had arrived; she watched the anxious looking bald man edge into the cell-room with little interest. He was supposed to be representing both of them, but Natasha didn’t see how he could if he couldn’t even look at the face of the still assassin behind the glass. He was sweating, and it reflected with a slight gleam in the camera.

“ _Ghost,”_ he began, and nervously shuffled his papers. Natasha looked briefly at James’ feed – the psychiatrist that was due to evaluate them should be arriving soon. The dark haired man was as deathly still as his partner, but for his eyes – they were open and sharply focussed. There was no trace of the cold cloud she had seen obscuring his vision in DC. No – the Soldier and the Ghost were lucid. She wasn’t sure if that made things better or worse. “ _My name is-”_

_“Romanov. Rogers. Wilson.”_

Natasha started at the sound of her name, and as the other agents monitoring the feeds began to mutter in German, she leant closer. She could feel surprised and suspicious eyes upon her. Natasha ignored them.

“ _W-what?”_ The lawyer’s voice trembled.

“ _Romanov. Rogers. Wilson.”_ Aleksandrina repeated, slowly but clearly. “ _I will not be speaking to you.”_ Her English was near perfect – Natasha only heard the faint traces of her buried accent because she was listening for it.

The lawyer clearly experienced a brief flare of boldness; he set his palms flat on the desk and leaned towards her motionless form. “ _Unfortunately, I am the only one who will be speaking to you.”_

Aleksandrina’s eyes flew open and fixed upon the lawyer with such intensity that he jumped and squawked. She listened to some of the agents around her sigh in frustration at his obvious admittance of fear. She had to fight a smile. Aleksandrina’s mouth curled in a brief snarl. “ _What I have to say can only be heard by them. They are the only ones who will understand.”_

 _What?_ Her heart skipped an anxious beat. _Asking to speak to her and Steve made sense, but Sam too?_

Muffled voices raised in anger almost drew her attention. Tony and Steve were yelling, though the soundproofing of the office glass made the words indecipherable. Natasha looked around, unconsciously seeking Sam in the near-chaos of the bustling command centre. He was where he had been left, hands folded on the desk in front of him. He met her gaze readily enough, though there was a note of betrayal in his dark gaze. But no comprehension. _Of course._ He didn’t have access to the audio feed like she did. Something about her face must have alarmed him, because he frowned, and moved to stand. She shook her head once subtly, and then reached coolly for the control panel, directing the audio feed into Sam’s office. _She couldn’t risk alerting Tony by letting Steve here._

Sam’s frown deepened as he looked to the speaker above his head in distinct confusion.

“ _-Understand what?”_ The lawyer was trying to sound brave still. Sam’s eyes narrowed. Natasha watched as Aleksandrina looked slowly into the camera lens.

“ _Romanov, Rogers, Wilson.”_ She repeated dully, though her eyes were sharp with meaning. Sam stiffened, something like surprise dawning on his features.

“ _Ghost-”_

 _“Romanov, Rogers, Wilson.”_ Aleksandrina cut him off again. The lawyer turned too, giving the camera a helpless look. Someone barked a short order in German to leave. He got up and left wordlessly, leaving the desk and chair empty. Aleksandrina closed her eyes and was still once more.

The door to Barnes’ cell was opened and she stood back to observe the psychiatrist. Ross joined her, and there was a moment of held breath and stillness in the room. The perverse human want to understand the working of evil transfixed them all. She could compare it to a teenager’s fascination with serial killers.

“ _Hello, Mr. Barnes.”_ The man’s English had an odd accent – not quite German, not quite Russian. Natasha tried to place it. “ _I have been sent by the United Nations to evaluate you. Do you mind if I sit?”_ Barnes remained stoic, gaze still fixed on a point above the man’s head. “ _Your first name is James?”_

Natasha watched Sharon Carter head towards Sam’s office. Steve had joined their friend, and was still watching the live-feed intently. Natasha wondered if Steve knew about Carter’s hopeless crush. It was unlikely.

“ _I’m not here to judge you. I just want to ask you a few questions.”_ The bob of James’ throat as he swallowed was the only indication he was listening to the man. “ _Do you know where you are James?”_ Natasha refocussed on the more pressing issue. Why had Aleksandrina been so adamant about speaking to the three of them? She hadn’t even asked for Barnes. What did the three of them have in common with her? What could they hear that others couldn’t? “ _I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me, James.”_

 _“My name is Bucky.”_ It came out a soft rasp, and Natasha resisted the urge to turn to Steve. She could imagine the exultation her friend must have been feeling – and the sorrow.

From what she knew of _Bucky_ – the man Steve had known – he was near as careful as the Soldier. He had always had a sniper’s eye, a long-reaching foresight. Meticulous, even. And yet, he had blown up the UN and been caught on camera. It was the fact that he had been seen at all, she realised, that was so strange. It was Aleksandrina’s ability that kept them so well hidden. It was years and years of training and practice that had created the mythology, the spectres they were. _It didn’t make sense,_ she realised, _for them to have been seen._ To be alert and aware of cameras was innate; it was learned. And yet…

Somehow the partner of an invisible woman had turned his face to the camera and been _seen_.

Natasha held no love for Russia. She held no love for the Academy, or for HYDRA, or for any of the institutions that had created her – and yet she respected and trusted their training so implicitly that she was certain Barnes and Romanov would not have allowed themselves to be photographed. So how-

Unless-

Her rational mind spun and whirred, and yet the idea, the notion was forming; _this was not their work. This was not them._

Natasha looked again at Aleksandrina in her cell, and considered a horrible possibility.

 _What was the one thing she, Sam and Steve had in common with Aleksandrina?_ _Washington DC._

_Why was Barnes caught on camera so obviously? He wasn’t._

_Who knew about Barnes, and who knew about DC?_

Something like sick dread made her gut clench, and she had to keep her hand from creeping for a weapon that wasn’t there.

_HYDRA._

The lights went out, and they were plunged into darkness.


	14. Berlin, 2016

**June 23rd, 2016**

**Berlin, Germany**

* * *

The lights went down, and Ghost felt a shock of ice-cold resolve spread through her. _HYDRA had come for them._

Her own cell – running on its own contained power source – remained humming and alive. Blinded by the glare of the fluorescents, she could do nothing more than squint into the blackness beyond, muscles tensed and adrenaline running through her. _When they came, they would find her ready and waiting. They would find her primed to kill._

The room remained undisturbed.

Anticipation grew and grew within her. She began to shake, beset by it. _Where were they?_ She had no doubt it was HYDRA – their time in the sun had always been threatened by the shadows of their past. _And the clouds were rolling in…_

“НУ ЖЕ!” **_COME ON!_** The cry came from her near involuntarily; shouted into the void of her cell and the darkness beyond. “Приходите попробовать, сволочи!” **_Come and try it, you bastards!_** Spittle flew from her lips with the force of her ire, and she strained against the restraints. Electricity raced through her, buzzing through the water, coming through the electric-collar at her neck, but her blood was roaring in her ears, and all she did was scream. She shrieked and thrashed against it. _Fuck restraint, fuck grace, if they were going to try and take her, they would have to rip her out, bloody and vicious like tearing stitches from a wound._ “Я умру - я умру, прежде чем вернусь!” **_I'll die- I'll die before I go back!_ **

She sounded deranged to her own ears, like the yowling of a rabid dog. “Я разорву тебя на части, если ты попытаешься-” ** _I will tear you apart if you try to-_** The door to the room opened suddenly, and she snarled wordlessly at the figure that appeared silhouetted in the entrance. It was only the hours of her studious examination that stopped her from screaming again; because she recognised the build of the man.

Sam Wilson stepped into the glow of her cell’s light and looked her in the eye without flinching. He had a cut dribbling blood down his forehead and desperation in his eyes. “He got inside Barnes.” Her stomach dropped, and she went very still. He swallowed thickly, and sucked in a visibly frantic breath. “Tell me I can trust you beyond Nat’s faith.” His hand had risen to hover beside the control panel, and she tracked its movement.

She met his eyes again, unblinking. “You can trust me.” She could see him thinking, remembering, weighing up the long list of her crimes. Indecision and worry warred in his deep eyes – but then his hand slammed down on the release.

She sighed a deep breath of relief at the feeling of the restraints falling loose. She surged forwards as the glass door swung open, the water pouring forth with her exit. Wilson had taken three hasty steps backwards and was watching her with wide eyes. The collar still sat heavy around her neck, and the limitations made her breath short. _It didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter._ Her bare, wet feet made no sound on the cold floor. She looked at Wilson, and he pointed her way. “He left a trail of bodies heading further in. I have to get after the guy who-”

She was already moving, and whatever he had been meaning to say faded into the roar building in her ears.

 _“Солдат ... пойдем со мной. Please.” **Soldier... come with me**._ _The stench of the city, of the tiny rooms, of his unwashed clothes, permeated everything. She did not recognise the confused shell of a man before her._

Ghost had shoved the broken bits of him back together once before. She could do it again.

She did not think about the fact that she had never tried to pull the man out of the Soldier before.

* * *

She followed the blare of alarms and fallen bodies through the facility. Whatever command her partner had been given did not seem to be one of distinct purpose. She could recognise the signs of casual dispatchment in the weakly stirring forms of the men strewn about the corridors. He had not been given a command to escape, elsewise he would have been gone already, and these men that had tried to stop him would be dead. Some of the semi-conscious roused at her passing, reaching half-heartedly for weapons and communication units. She paid them no mind.

Soon the artificial light gave way to natural as she reached the upper levels of the building, and as she approached a high-ceilinged hall, she could hear the sounds of combat over the high-pitched alarm.

Without the Grey she was forced to slow her approach, forced to curl herself into a position behind a pillar to observe the situation. She felt unerringly and frustratingly _human_.

The hall was taken up mostly with wooden tables and chairs; it seemed to be some kind of cafeteria, or casual meeting place. She recognised the gasping man lying in the remnants of a chair. _Anthony Stark, Iron Man._ He was watching her partner, who was engaged with a blonde woman. Her partner had the unfortunately human woman by the leg, and slammed her mercilessly into the flat-top of a nearby table. She did not get back to her feet. Ghost made to stand.

A blur of leather and copper gave her pause again.

_Natalia-_

Her form was impeccable, her technique only slightly distorted with the years of experience she would now have. For moment, Ghost dared to hold out a shred of hope for her star ex-pupil. And then her partner’s metal hand grasped the red-headed woman around her throat, and lifted her into the air before depositing her roughly atop a table.

Ghost could wait no longer.

She left her vantage point, and darted for her partner. She heard the edge of a choked gasp from Stark as she sprinted past him, but spared him no mind. Her partner’s back was to her, all his attention on the most obvious threat; and Natalia _was_ a threat. Even with his crushing grip around her throat, she had her legs around his neck, _squeezing_. It was impressive but futile – her partner could stay conscious longer than a normal human.

As Natalia’s face went from red to white to blue, Ghost struck.

She kicked him bodily away from the woman, and her partner released the woman as he stumbled back. From behind her, Natalia gurgled, and concern made her turn back. If he had crushed her windpipe then she might-

His metal hand closed with bruising force around her upper arm, and he _tugged_ her right off her feet. She was dragged a few meters before she was able to regain her footing, jabbing at the weakest point in his metal wrist joint to make the mechanism spasm and release her. There was no trace of James in his eyes; the cold steel of his gaze was totally the Soldier. He seemed more confused at her resistance than anything, and so she wiped her face clean of emotion.

“Солдат.” She barked at him, and he stiffened. “Встань.” **_Stand down._**

He blinked once, a slow open and shut of his lids, a mechincal gesture. “Почему? Прерогатива миссии-” **_Why? The mission prerogative-_**

“ _There is no mission!_ ” She hissed at him. She realised her mistake a moment too late. She should not have spoken in English.

“Солнце погасло, Месяца нет,” **_The sun is extinguished, there is no moon._ **Her partner began to speak the words as he moved towards her again, gaze intent. The lines made static burst in her head and white her vision for a moment, and she threw herself away from his reaching grip, going sprawling across the floor. _No-_

Wordless panic fuelled her scramble across the floor, crawling on all fours like an animal. The cold was descending upon her, the _words-_

Her hands closed around a pistol that had fallen from the unconscious grip of a uniformed agent, and she lifted it and whirled. He was stepping towards her, hands still outstretched to grab her. “Заревом алым, Запад блестит,” **_Scarlet blaze, glints in the west._** She screamed wordlessly, trying to drown his voice out, and fired the gun. He moved, whip-quick, and the bullets pinged loudly off the bulk of his metal bicep. He grunted, and kicked out at her. She rolled backwards to avoid the blow, forcing herself up and to her feet a few paces away, and firing again. The frost clouding her vision and her rational mind was making her sloppy. She missed thrice, and still he advanced upon her. He reached for her, and grabbed her wrist. She felt the bones crack and shift and her mouth dropped open in a soundless cry. He forced the gun away from his face, and spoke; “Птицы на гнездах-” **_Birds in their nests-_**

She dropped the gun from her right hand, curling in towards him and snatching it out of the air with her free hand. Before he could stop her, she had the gun angled towards her head. His eyes widened with sudden surprise and horror, and he reached for her wrist again, desperate to stop her.

Ghost clenched her jaw – and pulled the trigger.

* * *

There was a ringing wail in Natasha’s head that had nothing to do with the sirens still filling the air.

She wheezed and gasped around the encircling bruising of her throat, and forced herself to rise. She couldn’t quite manage it; she went rolling off the table and onto the ground, but despite the new flare of pain, she forced herself to _move_.

Aleksandrina was still where she had fallen.

The gun shots were still echoing in Natasha’s ears, the dull thud as the other woman had hit the floor like a drumbeat in her head. She reared up over the pale woman’s body, and forced her trembling fingers to turn her over. Already, her stomach was turning at the blood pooling beneath her corpse-

Aleksandrina’s eyes fluttered open and Natasha recoiled. “Aleks-” She began to speak before she could filter herself, unable to equate the bloodied, _living_ woman to the gunshots she heard.

“Уходи.” **_Get away._** The other woman didn’t seem to notice her near slip, and though the guttural word was an order, Natasha just stared. _What-?_ Aleksandrina’s eyes were rolling crazily, and the blood still leaking from the side of her head only served to make her look more like a member of the undead. She twitched, and turned to look wildly at Natasha again. Her gaze was unfocused and glazed. “Я не знаю, смогу ли я-“ **_I don’t know if I can-_ **She broke off with a groan, shaking her head like a horse trying to rid itself of flies. “Триггеры ...” **_The triggers…_**

Understanding hit Natasha like a bullet and she scooted back quickly. Behind her, she could hear Carter and Tony stirring weakly. “Ghost, Вы должны пойти.” **_You have to go._** She whispered as loud as she dared. Aleksandrina gave no signs of comprehension, but she began to get her legs under herself. As she stood, her short hair pasted to her skull with fresh blood, Natasha caught sight of what had kept the woman from giving in to the words that she had been conditioned to follow. This time when Aleksandrina swung her head around to stare at her with those glassy eyes, Natasha had her expression under control. She pointed in the direction that the Soldier had gone.

Wordlessly, Aleksandrina turned and left. Blood fell to the floor in fat droplets with each of her steps, and yet she did not falter.

* * *

Her neck was aching under the weight of the collar, her shattered wrist throbbed with every beat of her pulse, and the white-hot sting of her wound was making her eyes water. Worst of all was the acute deadened _loss_ where her sense of hearing should have been.

The frost that had encroached upon her was still clinging to the contours of the world around her; it was keeping her limbs stiff, it was turning every face into a target, it was making her palms itch for a weapon. She should have closed her eyes and found somewhere to hide until she could think clearly, but she would have been struck blind and deaf if she did. She tried her hardest to blend into the screaming, fleeing crowds still running from the sirens and chaos behind her.

When a hand clamped down on her shoulder, years of instinct and the frost made her react blindly. She threw her elbow back savagely as she turned, catching her assailant in the face. Her other hand came around in a deadly hook, and it took a visceral effort to stop the blow. Sam Wilson was clutching his bleeding nose and eyeing her with the same wariness he had worn when he had released her. Immediately, her blood boiled hot-

_A grip around the nape of her neck, and a sudden dizzying ascent towards the heavens. The earth shrank below her as the winged-man plucked her from the ground-_

_The grappling hook buried itself in the mechanic joints of his wings, and she grunted with the effort of pulling him back down to earth. The wing itself gave way under her terrific force; he went spiralling over the edge of the Helicarrier into nothingness-_

Wilson was speaking to her, mouth moving too quickly for her to understand. Blood had dribbled from his nose and was wetting his lips. _He was not a target. He was not an enemy._ Ghost clenched her fists and forced her warring instincts into silence. He was still speaking, and had his hand half-outstretched to her, as if he was going to touch her. She jerked out of his reach and shook her head. _If he touched her again, her control would snap._ She pointed to her bloodied ears. “I can’t hear you.” He blinked and then nodded, turning to point towards a side street.

 _He was brave_ , she realised with a dim sort of admiration. He kept his back to her, and when he looked at her, there was no trace of the fear she saw in the eyes of regular men. She felt a renewed sense of determination to her initial decision. _He was precious to Rogers, so she would defend him._ The further they walked from the compound, the longer she had in the fresh air, the more she repeated the names of the men and women she had to protect, the clearer her head became.

They approached a dilapidated warehouse with a small car parked out the front, the only sign of occupation. Her ears were beginning to buzz as her body worked to repair itself. She’d never had her eardrums blown out like that before, and was more than a little grateful to know that she could recover from it. Whilst living deaf from that moment on was a fate she would have resigned herself to with enough grace not to complain, she was thankful she would regain use of one of her most precious senses.

Wilson fiddled with a heavy looking chain and padlock, looking around furtively, and she heard the dull clinking of the metal under the buzzing drone of her ears. He waved her into the dark space before himself, though he kept a wide gap between them, leaning away from her as he held the door open for her.

Steve Rogers appeared from the shadows in a damp shirt, and it was only years of growing hardened to the world that stopped her from flinching. He looked from her to Wilson. “ _Is she…?”_ she read his lips as he spoke, though missed Wilson’s reply with her back to him. Whatever the dark-skinned man had said, however, seemed to be enough to assuage Rogers. His face slackened in relief, and the shadows in his eyes turned to naked plea. He looked at her then, and his fists fell open at his sides. When he spoke again, she was able to make out the sounds of his words. “Help him. _Please._ ”

Relief, all-consuming and overwhelming, made her knees buckle. Rogers darted for her as she swayed, eyes going wide. She avoided his helpful hands, catching herself on the tin wall instead. _He was here. He had not been taken from her._ Armed with the knowledge, she moved further into the warehouse without caution.

He was in the next room, sprawled unconscious on the floor. Someone – the Captain, she supposed – had made an attempt to bind his hands together. She eyed the thin metal that had been crudely twisted into restraints, and bent to remove it.

She ignored Rogers’ cry of alarm behind her, unwarping the metal and tossing it to the side. It wouldn’t have held him. Her partner had not stirred at her approach, and gently, she brushed the long locks of hair from his face, running her fingers over his scalp. _There_. She felt the lump growing just past his hairline, and gently rolled him over to expose the bicep of his metal arm. The back of her neck prickled at the feeling of their eyes on her, on her hands that were poised to do something secret and sacred. Just as her words had been taught only to her handlers and him, the workings of his arm had been entrusted to her alone. She forced herself past the feeling of guilt blossoming in her gut. She had to do this. If he was still the Soldier when he woke, then they would be hard pressed to stop him a second time.

Deftly, her fingers worked themselves into the hidden groove of the compartment concealing the mass of delicate wiring that powered and defined the arm. It popped open with a faint creak; the hinges had not been moved in some time. She switched the arm off. It went limp with a faint whir of protest, and as it pulled with deadweight at his shoulder, her partner groaned. It was with relief she realised she could hear him do so. She had to resist the urge to press her head to his chest and listen to the beat of his heart, to reassure herself.

Still, as her partner stirred again, and the two men behind her stepped closer, she could not stop herself from curling around him slightly. She eased him upright, his head lolling against her shoulder, and supported the heavy bulk of his arm with her own. Now she could see Wilson and Rogers; the Captain was looking at her pseudo-embrace with a crease on his brow. It made her want to snarl at him defensively. She held herself still and silent.

She could see her partner’s eyes rolling beneath the thin skin of his eyelids. _James…_ she crooned to him wordlessly, hoping and praying. _James, my дорогой, come back to me._ His eyes flickered open, the blue-grey momentarily clouded with wooziness and confusion. His gaze found her first, and a soft relief slackened his features. His left shoulder jerked – he had obviously meant to touch her – and he looked down at his dead arm in sudden uncertainty. She relaxed at the sight; there was no Soldier in his eyes. _Just her James._

He finally noticed the men standing over them, and his face shuttered still – but not before she saw a horrified realisation fall across his features. “Steve.”

Rogers twitched at his address, and Wilson crossed his arms, biceps bulging spectacularly. “Which Bucky am I talking to?” Rogers’ voice was harder than she thought he could muster.

Her partner swallowed thickly, eyes darting over the other man’s features. “Your mom’s name was Sarah.” A smile curled his lips up, and she watched him greedily. Дорогой. “You used to wear newspapers in your shoes.” She almost smiled with him as he chuckled. She knew that titbit of trivia herself; her partner had told her about it laughingly as they passed through Madrid.

Steve’s face split into a relieved smile. “You can’t read that in a museum.”

Wilson remained unmoved. “Just like that, we’re supposed to be cool?”

Fingers on her tender wound turned her attention back to her partner. He was looking at the bloody mess of her ear with dawning understanding and burgeoning sorrow. “What did I do?” He whispered, face raw and guilty.

She leaned away from his touch. “This was not you. But you did…enough.” She said delicately.

“Oh, _God._ ” His face fell, and he curled his fingers into a fist and dropped his hand from her face. “I knew this would happen. Everything HYDRA put inside of me is still there.” His eyes grew haunted; old memories and phantoms chased themselves through the shadows of his mind. “All he had to do is say the goddamn words.” He looked at her again, looked at her ears, and a sudden understanding bloomed on his face. His mouth tightened, and she caught a flash of rage she didn’t understand before he looked away from her.

“Who was he?”

“I don’t know.” Her partner said.

“HYDRA.” She was sure of herself, though her partner shook his head. She frowned. “Кто еще? Он знал слова.” **_Who else? He knew the words._**

“Он этого не сделал - по крайней мере, не совсем. Он читал из книги.” **_He didn't - not really anyway. He read from the book._** James pursed his lips. He seemed sure of it, and so she would trust him.

“Hey, hey,” Wilson snapped his fingers at them. “Less of the secret-spy talk.”

“It’s Russian.” She informed him, and he rolled his eyes.

Steve raised a hand as Wilson opened his mouth to retort again. “People are dead. The bombing, the set-up…the doctor did all that just to get ten-minutes with you.” Steve bent a little to catch her partner’s eyes as he lowered his head. She could feel the exhaustion in his body, in the slow rise and fall of his chest, in the tightness of his muscles. “I need you to do better than ‘I don’t know’.”

“He wanted to know about,” Here, he paused again, and looked at her. Wilson made a wordless noise of exasperation. She ignored him. “About Siberia.” She felt, for a moment, the dizzying sensation of freefall. The memory of an ancient cold, a stagnant chill from long ago, raised the hairs on her arms. “Where we were kept.” Her partner looked through her for a moment, doing his own remembering. “He wanted to know exactly where.”

“Why would he need to know that?” Steve was unrelenting – she could admire his doggedness even in the face of the recovery of his best-friend. He was a good man. Her partner, however, was still caught in the memories of the past.

_A cage that functioned as a training ground. The heavy musk of mutated testosterone and sweat in the air. And the Soldiers – they fought without mercy. It was not friendly practice to them. She watched as her partner was forced to the ground, face screwed up in pain. It was death waiting to be dealt._

Her partner shuddered once, imperceptibly. Though it made her hackles rise to show such weakness to strangers, though it violated every caution she _must_ follow, she reached up to gently brush back the hair that had fallen over his eyes. They all watched her soothing gesture silently. She looked at Steve then, met his curious gaze with a hard stare of her own. “Because he is not the only Winter Soldier.” Her partner squeezed his eyes shut briefly. Wilson visibly recoiled from the notion, and Steve’s eyes grew grave. 

As they detailed the program that had made him, that had made the others, Ghost found herself remembering.

_A car, and a long stretch of deserted road. They were in the United States – they roared past a sign in American English. Her partner was bent low over the handlebars of the motorbike. A pop and flash of gunfire, and the car they were pursuing went spinning off the road._

_A man. Bleeding and already dead on impact. A woman. Crying and begging. Beautiful for her age, and rich. The pearls around her neck glowed in the low light. Her hand in the woman’s chest, her fingers closing around her heart. The last two beats of life. Her gloves shining scarlet._

_The boot. Her partner already collecting their package. And the ice and the poem. The poem beat in her head, the stanza playing over and over and over and over and over and over-_

“Who were they?” Steve’s voice broke through the confusing thread of images, blowing back the frost.

“Their most elite death squad. More kills than anyone in HYDRA history.” Her partner was the one to speak now, and she was grateful for it. “And that was before the serum.”

“They all turn out like you?” Wilson asked, a little sardonically.

Her partner didn’t take the bait. “Worse.”

“The doctor,” Steve leant back against the wall, still watching her partner intently. “Could he control them?”

Her partner thought for a beat. She wasn’t sure either, uncertain just how extensive the other Soldier’s conditioning had been. They hadn’t been active for long before they were put into cyrosleep – they had been too unpredictable. “Enough.” Her partner said finally.

“He said he wanted to see an empire fall.” Steve was still clearly rattled by it; his clear eyes were troubled.

“With these guys, he could do it.” James’ jaw jumped. She wondered if he was remembering the way he had been hit. “They speak thirty languages, they can hide in plain sight, infiltrate, assassinate, destabilize. They could take a whole country down in one night, you’d never see them coming.” They had learnt from the best, after all. She was feeling guilty, she realised, guilty for the hand she had had in creating those monsters.

Wilson walked towards Steve, and lowered his voice to speak. Though she could hear clearly now, she looked away, trying to give them some illusion of privacy. James was already looking at her. When she met his eyes, his mouth twisted. “Он спросил про 1991 год.” **_He asked about 1991._**

The old couple, the package. “Что ты ему сказал?” ** _What did you tell him?_** She asked him quietly. She was unsure of the significance, unsure why the memories had only returned now.

Frustration rose in his eyes again, more anger. “Я не уверен.” **_I’m not sure._** He couldn’t feel it, but she wrapped her fingers around his lax metal fingers and squeezed.

“Неважно.” ** _It doesn’t matter._** She whispered. He looked at her hand around his, and she let it go in order to briefly touch his chin. The stubble there rasped at the pads of her fingers. She ached for him. “Мы найдем его и убьем их всех. Мы все исправим.” **_We will find him, and kill them all. We will make it right._** Just as carefully as before, she reopened the compartment on his arm and turned it back on.

He let out a quiet gasp as feeling returned, flexing his fingers. When he looked at her again, his eyes were alight feverishly, desperately. “Мы?” **_We?_**

She almost smiled. “Да ты глупый человек. Мы.” **_Yes, you silly man. We._**

Steve turned back to them. “We might have a plan. We might be able to stop them.”

She wondered if the Captain knew they would have to kill them. She wondered if he would get his hands as dirty as theirs.


	15. Saxony, 2016

**Schkeuditz, Saxony, Germany**

**June 24 th, 2016**

* * *

Squashed uncomfortably in the backseat of a Volkswagen beetle, Ghost found herself going over their ‘ _plan’_ again, with considerably less enthusiasm.

Steve had called for aide from the other Avengers – that was as specific as he had gotten, another point of personal annoyance. They were going to try to make it to their high-speed aircraft he kept calling a Quinjet, that was being kept in an airport hangar of one the most populated airports in Germany. Then, accompanied by all these… _Avengers_ , they were going to fly to Siberia and attempt to apprehend a murderous squad of super-soldiers.

Ghost had many problems with this half-baked _plan_ , though most pressing for her, was the pain her knees were suffering, jammed into the back of the Beetle's driver seat, and the stench of her two-day old clothing. The heavy collar still around her neck was gone at least – one well timed jerk of her partner’s arm had shattered the electrical current generator, and another had sent it clattering into the next room. Absently, she reached back to rub at the implant at the top of her spine, scratching at the raised scar tissue around it.

She could see her partner look at her in her peripheries and dropped her hand. She didn’t need him worrying. She was thinking about Stark’s technology, the little device that had stopped her dead.

“This shouldn’t take long.” She was brought out of her reverie by Steve’s voice. They’d turned off the highway onto an offramp, and had followed it to beneath an underpass. Another car was waiting, and as she watched, a young blonde woman got out of the driver’s seat. Steve got out, and met her before the bonnet. She could see the woman’s moon eyes, could practically smell the pheromones from her seat.

The woman opened the boot of her car, and Ghost leant forwards at the sight of the Captain’s shield, Wilson’s wings, and what looked to be some of her and her partner’s gear. She hadn’t realised they’d confiscated it from the flat.

“Can you move your seat up?” Her partner addressed Wilson, and she eyed his legs, as similarly cramped as her own.

Wilson had his seat back all the way – but he didn’t even spare her partner a look. “No.” There was a beat of tense silence, and then her partner shifted over. It pushed them together, touching all the way from their shoulders to their ankles. She listened to his imperceptible sigh, and fought the quirk of her lips. Wilson met her eyes in the mirror, and for a brief moment, they shared a look of amusement. Her partner awkwardly extracted his metal arm from between them, wiggling it up and over her head so it rested atop the back of the seat instead. She tilted her head back briefly to lean against it for a moment. His tight face relaxed slightly.

To her surprise, the Captain suddenly squared his shoulders, and leant _towards_ the woman to kiss her. From the front seat, Wilson let out a low chuckle, and her partner huffed a pleased breath. They were both smiling at the sight, and she remembered her partner’s notes about Steve’s loveless past. She tried to muster a similarly pleased look as he turned back to look at them. She could practically hear his fondly exasperated sigh as he took them in. 

* * *

They pulled up beside a large white van in the empty parking lot.

She was not that surprised to find the airport mostly abandoned; neither Stark or this Thaddeus Ross struck her as unintelligent, and Steve’s plan was hardly genius. It made sense they’d evacuated the airport, in order to protect civilians that might have been caught in the crossfire.

Wilson and Steve got out, Steve making a beeline for an older man with a bow strapped to his back, taking his hand firmly. Her partner snorted quietly; “Everyone’s got a gimmick these days.” Ghost was less focussed on the archer, and more interested by the small young woman that had slipped around the side of the van. She was hovering uncomfortably behind the archer, arms folded tightly across her chest. She could not be long out of her teens – and yet, there was an achingly familiar darkness in her blue eyes. “What?”

“The girl…” She breathed – and as if she had heard her, the dark-haired girl looked at her. As their eyes met, Ghost had the strangest sensation of fingers on her skull. _How interesting_. Whatever the girl saw on her face must have startled her; she was the first to look away, eyes blown wide. Ghost was hardly offended by the gesture; it was a by-product of who she was. Her partner folded the seat down for them, and she eased out of the tiny vehicle. Her legs ached at the sudden extension after being cramped for so long, and she resisted the urge to rub at her tight muscles.

“-How about our other recruit?” She caught the tail-end of their conversation. Her partner leant against the roof of the car with a casualness she knew was artificial. He was trying to portray ease to put _them_ at ease. It was perhaps childish – but she did not care to do the same. It wouldn’t have mattered if she had broken into cheerful whistling and produced a cake – she would inspire unease all the same. The girl looked at her again as the archer threw open the van’s sliding door.

“He’s rarin’ to go!”

There was a man inside the van. “Had to put a little coffee in him…but he should be good.” She frowned at his laconic form, food wrappers spilling from his chest as he was startled awake by the loud sound. He was handsome, in a boyish kind of way, though the circles under his eyes and the lines of age at the corners of his mouth and eyes told her he was perhaps nearly as old as the archer.

He got awkwardly out of the van. “What time zone is this?” As she watched him come to full consciousness, taking in his surroundings, his eyes widened. He was staring at Steve. He took a few stumbling steps forwards, mouth dropping open. “Cap-Captain America…”

Steve took his hand and shook it. “Mr. Lang.” _So, this was the one that shrunk._ She looked at her partner, sharing a brief beat of humour as Ant-Man kept pumping Steve’s hand.

“It’s an honour.” He said seriously, before looking down in vague surprise. “I’m shaking your hand too long. Wow! This is awesome!” She almost laughed, raising a brow at the star-struck man. Lang turned to look at the girl. “Captain America,” he pointed out again, “Oh, hey – I know you too, you’re great!” For the first time, a little light and warmth loosened the self-conscious set of the girl’s face. Lang was still going; he reached out as if hypnotized and squeezed the width of Steve’s biceps. Beside her, her partner smirked. “Jeeze,” He clapped his hands together, “Look, I wanna say, I know you know a lot of super people, so…thinks for thanking of me.” Lang looked at Wilson next, pointing a finger gun at him. “Hey, man!”

Wilson’s reply was not as friendly. “What’s up, Tic-Tac?”

Lang gulped, “uh, good to see you. Look, what happened last time, when I-”

“It was a great audition, but it’ll never happen again.” Wilson was quick to interrupt him, and she was surprised at her friendly flare of interest. _What exactly had happened between them?_

“They tell you what we’re up against?” Steve interrupted the awkward moment. His voice was different; it was a tone she was coming to associate with the Captain. It was only then that Lang’s eyes made their way to her and her partner. She watched some of the joy drain from his hazel-eyes.

“S-something about some psycho-assassins?”

Ghost looked away from the man, focussing her eyes on the clear sky above the terminal. It was unseasonably cool, but clear and bright. Too bright, she thought, for such a dark day. “Мы должны двигаться.” She muttered to herself, though loud enough for her partner to hear.

“We should get moving.” He repeated her words loud enough to catch the attention of the others. She kept her gaze on the cloudless blue above them. The PA system sounded overhead, the German making her body begin to sing with anticipation. Her partner looked at Steve. “They’re evacuating the airport.”

The Captain nodded and turned to address them all.

“Suit up.”

* * *

The clothes that had been retrieved from the flat weren’t much more than her last pair of jeans; black denim and fraying at the knees; her navy tank-top, tight and thin enough to make her want to wrap her arms around her exposed torso; and her old boots.

She strapped the only knife she could find to the outside of her thigh and turned to her partner. He had at least been afforded his old combat vest, though the rest of him was as similarly underdressed for the fight as she was. He was crouched over the laces of his boots and straightened after double-knotting them with a frown.

He looked her over, eyes lingering on her exposed décolletage and bare arms, before dropping to the single knife at her side. Wordlessly, he unclipped one of his knives from his belt, and flipped it, catching the end of the blade between his fingers; offering her the hilt. She had to step closer to him to take it, wrapping her fingers around the less familiar grip. He caught her wrist as she made to stow it on her own belt, gently running his fingers over her still-healing bones. His face was suddenly open, vulnerable. She leant towards him as if drawn by a magnet. “Darlin’, listen, I need you to know-” His eyes darted over her shoulder, and he snapped his mouth shut, face growing guarded again.

Ghost turned and met the hesitant eyes of the young woman. She had a bundle of dark red leather in her hands, and as Ghost looked at it, she thrust it forwards. “This is for you.” She had an accent, though her words were clear. _Sokovian._ Ghost could place it at once. “If you want it.” The girl tacked on hurriedly.

Ghost took the leather from her, unfolding it to reveal a jacket. _Not just leather_ , she realised, looking at the subtle plates of Kevlar reinforcement around the bust and torso lines. The girl was already wearing one that looked similar, though longer, and with a collar that exposed her throat, and a tail that split like a conductor’s coat. “Thank you.” She murmured, not wanting to frighten the timid thing further.

“You don’t,” The girl blurted suddenly, and her pale cheeks coloured spectacularly. Ghost frowned slightly, confused. “Frighten me, I mean.” Suspicion made her want to take a step back, but before she could, the girl’s hands came up and together – almost in prayer. “I’m sorry – I didn’t _mean_ to do it, I swear. Sometimes I can’t- it just _happens_.” The girl swallowed nervously, eyes darting between Ghost and James, who was standing silently behind her. For a moment, her eyes flared scarlet, and Ghost felt that same _stroking_ sensation. Red light danced around the girl’s fingers, and Ghost remembered something;

_“Unless – you don’t know about the Witch and her brother. Oh no – you mustn’t. That little concoction of madness was devised out of your jurisdiction…Though the Avengers picked them up, I’m sure they’re just like you.”_

The incoherent mutterings of a foolish man became suddenly clear.

“ _Witch.”_ She spoke in Sokovian and watched the girl’s eyes widen.

“ _They used to tell me about you; their first successful experiment. You were legend.”_ The girl whispered back, voice tight with sudden emotion. Behind her, James shifted, confused. Ghost took a step towards the girl. She didn’t flinch. “ _You’re really not afraid of me?”_ She sounded wondering, a little awed. Slowly – slow enough that the girl could step away if she wanted – Ghost extended her hand. The girl was still, and Ghost rested her hand on her shoulder. She could feel the young woman’s body heat through the thick material of her jacket. She wondered if the girl could feel the ice in her own skin.

“ _I am only afraid of one thing.”_ She told the girl quietly, and smiled at her as gently as she could. “ _And you are not it.”_

The girl smiled back, a little manically, and she watched the moisture build in her round eyes with a shocking impulse to embrace the thin woman. It was a sensation she had not felt since she had first laid eyes on a skinny red-head that hadn’t known how to throw a punch. “My name is Wanda. Wanda Maximoff.” The girl volunteered suddenly, and Ghost took a step back again as Wanda ducked her face, dashing a hand under her eyes.

When she looked up again, Ghost was sure to meet her with a smile. “And I am Ghost.” She turned slightly and gestured to her partner. “This is James.” Wanda nodded to him, smiling slightly as he raised a friendly hand. “I am glad to have met you, Wanda.”

“Me too.” Wanda sounded genuinely pleased, and Ghost felt warmth bloom in her chest.

“Давай.” **_Come on._** Her partner touched her elbow lightly. She nodded, and smiled one last time at Wanda as she turned to follow him. The jacket wasn’t an exact fit; too short on the arms, tight on her shoulders, a little loose at the bust and around her torso. But it would do. It was better than nothing. It smelled faintly of spice; paprika and clove. She did up the fastenings on the front as she moved towards the Captain.

 _No –_ she realised. _Her_ Captain now.

* * *

Her partner didn’t like the plan, she could see it in the tense set to his shoulders. She wondered what he had been about to tell her. She didn’t like it much either. She never liked being apart from him.

But the Captain was right – out of all of them, she had the best chance of getting to the Quinjet undetected. It still didn’t mean she was happy about it. Steve had gone out to face the Iron Men alone; Lang his only companion, shrunken and hiding on his shield. Ghost had thought she had seen it all – but she could admit to being surprised at the sight of the man becoming miniature.

She watched, and she waited. She was in the Grey, invisible, intangible.

The Iron Man was monologuing. It echoed through the Captain’s comms and into her own ear. He sounded arrogant, American to his detriment. It grated on her. She was in the delicate stage of pre-action, so perhaps her irritation was more her own than fault of the man she did not know. Adrenaline was keeping her on edge. Anticipation was making her anxious. She paced, phasing in and out and through and around the pillars of the airport’s lower support.

The Black Panther had re-joined the Iron Men, and though she hadn’t seen Natasha, she had no doubt she was somewhere close. It didn’t take her long to find her; her ex-student approached the captain from his left, and by the hard look on her face, she could tell she was spewing whatever nonsense the Iron Men were. Something like disappointment, almost like betrayal, selfish and nonsensical made her look away.

Then – from seemingly nowhere, a new figure appeared. Small, lithe, clad in red and blue. _A child?_ So, the mighty Tony Stark required children to fight his battles for him. Ghost stilled to listen, straining against the distance and the deadening of the Grey. _He sounded young._

“ _We found it. The Quinjet’s in hangar five, north runway.”_ Wilson’s voice buzzed in her ear, and she watched as the Captain squared his shoulders. _It was time._

When the fighting began, it took every little bit of her self-control to turn her back and walk away from it.

* * *

_Where was she?_

Natasha didn’t break with the rest of her compatriots.

She was not so rash. Lang had already handed Steve back his shield, and she knew the gauntlet had been thrown down. There was no stopping it. _But maybe she could stop Aleksandrina…_

Steve looked at her – just long enough that she could see the resolution in his eyes. Then, he was off after T’Challa, and the kid had leapt from the top of the van, leaving her alone.

Natasha took a breath, closed her eyes, and brought herself back twenty years. She breathed in the Russian snow, and tasted blood in the back of her mouth, and pictured the spectral form she had been seeking for so long. She was a child again; fresh and moulded to the image of a woman she barely knew. _Where was she?_

_The halls always seemed particularly menacing at night. The shadows pooled at the ends of the long, white passages, and every door was a black square of nothingness. The cold was also extra biting; and with her handcuff dangling loose from her wrist, Natalia scrunched her bare toes against the icy tile._

_Where was she?_

_Ghost had been away for two days now. Natalia knew it wasn’t Academy business; she’d seen men in unfamiliar uniform outside in the garden, and no one had been able to tell her where her teacher was. Natalia was put out by the abruptness of it – and secretly, more than a little afraid of the possibility that Ghost might not come back at all._

_And yet, something had driven her from her cot. Most girls worked out how to pick the handcuffs that secured them to their beds a few weeks into joining, and Natalia had known since before she had come to the Academy, but tonight was the first night she had ever left her dormitory._

_Natalia wrapped her fingers around the freely swinging metal to dull the clinking and rounded the next corner with far less confidence. The cold was spurring her back to bed, and the thought of punishment was growing more real._

_And then she saw it; the barest flicker of light from under an unfamiliar door._

_Natalia knew it was tempting fate to linger – there was no telling who or what was behind the door – and yet she paused in front of it. After a few minutes, the light shuttered off._

_She had turned to go when she heard it – well, not so much heard, as felt it. She whirled, heart leaping into her throat, freezing under the eyes of the figure that had appeared in the doorway. _

_Ghost stood in her spectral form; gauzy and greyscale, though the ice of her eyes was still eerily sharp, pinpricks of refracted light in the darkness of the hall. Natalia could feel the pseudo-burn of punishment to come, and was about to beg for mercy, when Ghost stepped back through the door. A beat. Then a click, and the door swung open._

_Natalia swallowed, and stared into the blackness beyond. And then she stepped inside._

_Ghost’s rooms were near bare – but for an overwhelmed filing cabinet, a small desk, two chairs, a thin mattress, and a row of watches on the wall. She couldn’t see much – the small lamp that sat on the desk didn’t illuminate much apart from the wood it was sitting upon – but Ghost didn’t seem to need it. The woman was sitting on her mattress, solid once more, and though Natalia still felt a queasy mix of fear and anticipation, she crept towards her teacher, and crouched before the mattress._

_“Где вы были?” **Where were you?** _

_Though she whispered, her voice was loud in the still silence of the room. Ghost slumped slightly, and in the dimness, she was able to make out the slack exhaustion on her features, the jerky slide of her eyelids. “Делать вещи.” **Doing things.** Ghost’s voice was slurred and thick, and it made her feel sicker. _

_Natalia leant a little closer, tugging her nightdress down over her bare knees. “Какие вещи?” **What things?**_

_Ghost’s head tilted towards her lethargically, and Natalia could feel the frost of her eyes upon her – far colder than the depth of the Russian night. “Секретные вещи. Скрытые вещи.” **Secret things. Hidden things.** For a moment, the pale fullness of her lips quirked in a deadly half-smile. “То, что могу сделать только я.” **Things that only I can do.**_

Natasha opened her eyes, and turned away from the two men locked in combat. In the next moment, she was running in the direction of the hangar.

“ _Natasha?”_ Tony’s voice sounded in her ear, piqued with confusion and concern.

Natasha didn’t stop running, eyes fixed on the shadows beneath the airport’s main building, on the clear path that lead to the northern hangars. “Alek-Ghost is heading for the Quinjet.” Her voice came short, and she cursed herself at the slip, unsheathing her batons, “she’s unaccompanied.”

“ _I don’t see her!”_

Natasha almost smiled. “No shit.”

The sudden explosion from behind her sent her flying, knocking the breath from her lungs and her feet from under her. She tumbled, drawing her hands to her face against the wave of heat from the massive ball of flame that passed over her. She skidded, catching the glass of the building shiver with the shockwave, and a _flash_ of something else – the momentary distortion of air, like a mirage.

_There._

Tony landed beside her, and she caught his gauntlet as he reached for her, letting him haul her up with ease. She bit her lip, and then turned to gesture in the direction she had seen Aleksandrina. “We need to block off that walkway, she’s-” Tony was already turning, and in the next moment, two tiny missiles zipped from his shoulder. The resulting explosion brought down the supporting pillar. Natasha couldn’t help the flare of anger that made her rip away from his support. “Was this part of the plan?” She asked through clenched teeth. Tony’s featureless mask studied her for a moment.

“Well, my plan was to go easy on them.” His sarcasm set her teeth on edge, and she looked back at the still smoking pile of rubble where the walkway had been. “You wanna switch it up?”

* * *

Ghost _hurt_.

Having a bunch of cement and metal dropped upon her wasn’t exactly a pleasant feeling, and it was a struggle to drag herself out of the pile. It was only the grace of her reflexes that had saved her from a certain death.

It was beginning to wear on her now; the Grey exhausting her as she drew upon it. She craved the familiar security of her partner by her side. She didn’t know how Stark had known where to aim, but clearly, she had grown lazy and dependent on a second pair of eyes.

Fury hastened her escape, hand over hand, fingernails cracking and bleeding on the concrete as she heaved herself from the rubble. She forced herself to her feet, abandoning intangibility in favour of speed and purpose. The open hangar was _right there-_

Ghost broke into a sprint, and in her peripheries noticed the other members of Captain’s band of wayward heroes falling in behind her. Barton and Wanda, Lang with surprising speed, then the Captain himself, already gaining on her head start, mouth held in a tight line, and then – and her stomach flipped and heart soared – Wilson and James, making a beeline for the Captain’s left flank. _She could make it_ – if she just kept running, if she allowed the others to distract Stark’s team, then she could-

Her only warning was a bright yellow beam of light. White heat and sudden immense pain brought her to her knees, and before she could regain full control of herself, before her senses could return – a hand had fisted itself in the leather of her borrowed coat, and she was lifted into the air.

It was a man – but, _no_ – she realised with a sick surprise, not a man. A-a _robot?_ It looked like a man, though it was red and silver, and where his irises should have been was a spinning delicate overlap of circular circuitry. And it was _looking_ at her, as if it could _see_ her invisible form. Panicked, she phased out of tangibility. Somehow, _impossibly,_ it phased with her, grip still secure, the outlines of where they touched a bright yellow. The stone in the centre of its forehead pulsed once, and she felt that same pain, her vision whiting out for a moment.

As carelessly as a toddler with a toy, it cast her aside.

Ghost thudded painfully into the cement at the Captain’s feet, and wheezed for breath. Steve was already stooping, and for the first time, she felt none of the discomfort she usually did as his hands came under her elbows to haul her upright.

“Captain Rogers!” The computer-man called to him, and she felt the Captain’s hands flex where he supported her weight. She still felt oddly weak, whatever that yellow stone had done making her lungs tight and her limbs like jelly. “I know that you believe what you’re doing is right,” New hands, familiar hands took her from the Captain, and she swayed into her partner’s grip.

“Ты в порядке?” **_Are you alright?_** His voice was low, urgent, and she looked up to meet his wild eyes.

“Я думаю так.” **_I think so._** Ghost grit her teeth and forced herself to stand on her own.

“But for the collective good,” The thing was still speaking, and though it sounded human, she couldn’t help but bare her teeth at it. Stark and Natasha dropped before them, and Ghost could feel the other woman’s eyes on her face. “You must surrender now.” It’s voice was impossibly gentle, soothing – and she felt the phantom pain roll through her again. The three others – the Panther, the boy, and the other man in Iron – dropped from the sky, assembling in a loose reflection of their own line. Natasha – _Natalia_ – was still looking. Ghost could not meet her eyes.

Though she was weary, she knew what was going to happen. She stepped out of her partner’s grasp, and took a slow steadying breath. _She had been spilling blood for over one-hundred years. She had survived shadows and enemy and ally alike, and she had fought to stay alive since she had first been conceived._ She would fight now, and she would survive.

“What do we do, Cap?” Wilson’s voice came as if from far away; and she could feel the frost descending upon her.

She reached out, just for a moment, whisper-quick – and grasped her partner’s metal hand. She did not turn to look at him, did not expect him to either, and when he squeezed her hand once, briefly, she drew away again. “Вместе.” **_Together._** She whispered to him, and him alone.

His voice was a sigh, a promise; “Всегда.” **_Always._**


	16. Saxony, 2016

**Schkeuditz, Saxony, Germany**

**June 24th, 2016**

* * *

Ghost broke into a sprint as the others did, holding herself right on the precipice of the Grey – and as the Captain and Stark collided with the resounding ring of metal on metal, combat breaking out around them – she phased out.

It was enough to confuse the boy in red-and-blue, who visibly staggered mid-stride as she ran right through him. One of his webs shot after her, but before he could regain his stride, Wanda had sent him flying with a burst of her strange energy. _Magic,_ she thought wonderingly, dazedly.

This time, when the computer-man shot his energy at her, she was ready. At the last second, so close she could feel the exposed flesh of her neck burn and tingle, she threw herself out of the path of the blast. It forced her away from her partner, and as she rolled and spun in a tight crouch to keep the thing in her sight, she realised that may have been the point. The Panther was already upon her partner, with the same savage intent, each swipe of his claws aiming to kill.

_She would not be separated from him again._

She ran for him again, even as the computer lined up again, even as warning made her skin prickle – _if she was forced to suffer to get to him, so be it._ And then nothing.

Unable to help herself, she cast a look over her shoulder, and was greeted by the sight of the computer tumbling through the air, Wilson spiralling in a graceful arc away from him. Another thrum of gratitude, of respect, raced through her.

The Panther and her partner had each other at arm’s length, grappling with equal force – though she suspected much of her partner’s focus was on keeping the Panther away from himself. If he had the same murderous intent as the black-suited man, the Panther would be dead. She had no doubt of that.

She threw herself gracelessly at the Panther.

Ghost locked her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, a parody of a backpack, and pulled them both into the Grey. She heard his startled choke as they toppled _through_ James, who had already danced back out of the way. She let him go, and the momentum made him faceplant into the concrete. The Panther scrambled back to his feet, and she was almost impressed at the speed at which he came for her. _Almost._ She caught his slash at her throat with her forearm, resounding the blow up and away, and phased out as he kicked at her. His foot passed fruitlessly through her stomach, and as he stumbled with his own momentum again, her partner had moved seamlessly into the place where she had been – placing a well place blow to the small of his back, and he crumpled again.

He rolled with a groan, and she readied herself – but was taken by unfortunate surprise at his low blow. His claws slashed sideways, and she was too slow to avoid them, crying out involuntarily at the sharp metal that cut through her jeans and into the muscle of her calf. Blood began to flow immediately, the thick metal scent reaching her nose, soaking hot and wet into her boot, and she stumbled back, unable to put her weight on the wound. Her partner shot her a distressed look, stepping in front of her to engage the Panther again.

She sunk her teeth into her bottom lip, and forced herself to take a step towards the hangar. If she couldn’t fight the man any longer without getting in the way of her partner, then she had to stick to the original plan.

She had made it a few feet, getting used to the crippling pain with every step, when a body went flying past her, colliding with one of the abandoned luggage trailers. She recognised the svelte form and blazing red hair instantly. Natalia rolled over with a groan and met her eyes. They both stilled.

_“Again.”_

_The blonde girl flinched at her voice, eyes darting warily towards her, away from her far smaller, far younger sparring partner. Natalia didn’t react, her eyes still focussed unerringly on the blonde girl. Annika was one of the five girls in their final year of the Academy, and should have known better than to look away from her opponent._

_Natalia struck in the time it took Annika to look back at her. The thirteen-year-old moved with hard earned grace and deadly precision. Annika didn’t stand a chance – where she was giving in to exhaustion, Natalia was using it to drive her. Ghost felt a proud smile flit momentarily across her face as Natalia brought Annika to her knees._

_Natalia was, without a doubt, the best they’d ever had. And soon, Ghost thought, she would be ready to step into the ring against her._

“Я тебя давно ищу.” **_I’ve been looking for you for a long time._** Natalia rose slowly to her feet, never once looking from her eyes.

Ghost took a careful step in the direction of the hangar. Natalia mirrored her with equal delicacy. “Я знаю. Тебе не следовало искать.” **_I know. You should not have been looking._** This time, it was Natalia that moved – taking a deliberate step towards her. Despite herself, Ghost took a step forwards too, putting her back to the hangar.

“Do you remember me?” There was desperation in Natalia’s jewel green eyes. She looked suddenly very young. Ghost nodded her head once, some unnamed emotion rising in her chest and tightening her throat. Natalia let out a quiet breath, and took another step closer. “There is so much I have to tell you,” she swallowed visibly, and then she raised her fists, “But…”

Reluctantly, Ghost lifted her hands and slipped into a ready stance. Though most of her wanted nothing more than too run, a small part of her wondered and anticipated. “But we must fight.” She spoke with a heavy heart.

Natalia’s lips quirked, and then she struck.

* * *

To her surprise, Aleksandrina stayed solid and visible as she launched herself towards the older woman. Natasha whirled into a complicated sequence of hits and kicks. Though she just needed Aleksandrina to take her into intangibility, a part of her wanted to impress her old teacher.

Aleksandrina met her with equal force; and it was a mark of their time together that she was able to deflect every blow, able to anticipate a routine she had probably taught her. Natasha could already feel an ache in her flesh at the rigidity with which Aleksandrina parried every strike. “Сражайтесь.” **_Fight back._** She hissed at the other woman.

Aleksandrina’s impassive face was marred with a momentary frown, and Natasha threw herself forwards with abandon, putting her body unwisely well in reach. Aleksandrina merely reversed, inching away with every blow Natasha attempted to deliver. _It was like dancing, two partners that knew all the other’s moves._ Natasha grit her teeth, and then changed her strategy. She unsheathed a knife from her belt and spun it once, threateningly. Aleksandrina did not react, but this time, when Natasha slashed at her – she finally slipped into intangibility, and Natasha moved suddenly out of reach so that Aleksandrina was forced to grab her. With a sucking, draining sensation, her world went sepia, and the knife slipped out of her grasp.

“ _I believe you._ ” Natasha whispered, ignoring the nausea and overwhelming absence of sensation. Aleksandrina frowned again, and then, suddenly the world lost all colour completely.

“What?” Natasha heard Aleksandrina’s voice as if from very far away. Though she could not feel much; as if all her limbs were asleep, she was aware of the other woman’s grip loosening. “Then you need to let us go.”

Natasha shook her head, meeting her great-aunt’s eyes. “Stark won’t listen to reason now. But I can get you to the Quinjet.”

Aleksandrina blinked. “W-why? They will punish you for it. Surely, I am your enemy – and not just for what I have done, but what I did to _you_.”

“You made me _strong,_ дух.” Natasha clutched at the taller woman’s sleeves, trying to keep her from slipping away. Aleksandrina – _Ghost –_ had kept her alive, had built her to be something powerful, something dangerous. And now – now Natasha had _family._ It was the only thing she had ever wanted. “Все, что я хочу, это узнать тебя.” **_All I want is to know you._**

Aleksandrina shook her head jerkily, her still bloodstained hair clinging to sweat on her temples. “Я просто призрак, Natalia.” **_I am just a ghost._**

Rage and sorrow made her bow into the woman, desperately trying to make her understand. She _had_ to understand. “No. You are Aleksandrina.” Her face stilled, and Natasha could see the tremor that swept over her. “Aleksandrina Romanov,” Natasha cleared her throat roughly, fighting the building tears in her eyes.

“Какой?” **_What?_** Aleksandrina’s voice was a whisper.

Dimly, Natasha was aware of the sheer chaos around them. Their friends were all growing more desperate and more furious. The only thing that mattered, though, was the woman in front of her.

“Семья.” **_Family._** Natasha slid her hands down Aleksandrina’s arms, and intertwined their fingers. Even in this phantom realm, she could feel the chill of her skin. “Вы моя семья.” **_You are my family._**

Aleksandrina went very still. For a long, terrible moment, Natasha thought she had lost her. But then, a single tear rolled down her cheek, and she smiled.

Natasha thought they had never looked more alike.

* * *

“How long have you known?”

Ghost watched Natalia’s clever hands work on the engine controls, and tried to keep her own emotions contained. _Family._ She had never dared to even think on the notion, and now-

Now, the impossible was suddenly in front of her, preparing a jet for take-off.

Natalia spared her a brief look over her shoulder. She wasn’t smiling but there was a softness in her eyes now, unfamiliar. “For almost a year now.” She went back to the controls, hands flying over the various buttons and touchscreens. “After DC, I went looking through old HYDRA documents. It took me some time, but I managed to decode what looked like a birth certificate. I didn’t know it was yours until I connected the dates.”

_Aleksandrina Romanov._

Ghost turned the name over in her mind. “And I am your…?”

“Great-aunt.” Natalia didn’t seem to mind repeating herself. For that, Ghost was glad. She thought she might have been in shock. It didn’t feel real. “Your brother was my great-grandfather.”

“Brother.” She breathed, and tried to imagine a man with Natalia’s features. _Her_ features, she realised, and looked at the other woman with new eyes. Then she remembered something. “James – he once said we looked alike.”

Natalia turned back to her with a quirk of her brow. “What?”

“He doesn’t remember much of the Academy,” she explained, and was unable to help but smile at the memory. “He saw you training, saw how proud I was. Before we slept, he said that you looked like me but different.”

“I still remember how hard he hit.” Natalia was almost smiling too, one half of her full lips quirked. “Some of the girls said he was cute – but after they stepped in the ring…” She trailed off meaningfully.

Ghost snorted. “ _Cute._ ” She shook her head at the thought.

Natalia eyed her. “What will you do after this?”

Outside the jet, the fight they had left behind was still going. Dull explosions, creaking of metal and the rattle of machine gun fire sounded distantly. Ghost forced herself to focus on the battle ahead.

She knew she couldn’t lie to Natalia. Not now. Not ever. “I am not sure if there will be an after, Natalia.” Her future was uncertain. She was tired, injured, and facing enemies that had grown and developed fighting _her._

Natalia’s eyes closed briefly. “Don’t say that.” She whispered, sounding wounded. “I just got you back.”

For a moment she wavered between desire and her training. Natalia watched her with the ancient eyes of a killer. She willed herself to be brave and took a step towards the other woman. To her relief, she met her halfway, and Ghost stretched out a hand to brush back some of Natalia’s flyaway hair from her face. “малютка,” **_Little one,_** she murmured, and Natalia took her hand in her own. “Ты всегда был самым сильным.” **_You have always been the strongest._** The earth shook as something fell with a resounding boom that Ghost could feel in her bones. “You will weather this storm.”

Natalia swallowed thickly, and then nodded. Ghost knew she would, knew she would understand. She was a Widow after all. She was more than mortal. She was made from ice and blood just as Ghost had been.

They did not speak as they left the Quinjet, and yet Ghost felt as though they were still holding hands, as if the connection between them had transcended the physical.

Her partner and the Captain stopped dead at the sight of them. They were both breathing heavily, but to her relief, unscathed. James looked at her, a silent question in his clear grey eyes, and she allowed her face to relax enough to soothe him. His metal hand loosened its fist.

The Captain, however, did not seem to understand. He looked at Natalia warily, shield held at the ready. His eyes, however, were unerringly remorseful. He cared for her, she realised, he loved Natalia like he loved her partner. It would hurt Steve to hurt Natalia and yet his innate goodness would not let him stand down. Ghost was starting to understand the loyalty the man inspired.

“You’re not going to stop.” Natalia was not asking him, more an affirmation than anything else, but Steve shook his head, resolute.

“You know I can’t.”

Movement from the pile of metal and rubble behind the two men drew Ghost’s attention, but before she could do so much as unsheathe her knife, Natalia had raised her arm. “I’m going to regret this.” The Captain flinched, but the small electric charge that shot from her gauntlet hit the Panther square in the chest. He crumpled with a cry, and the Captain whirled in surprise. “Go.”

James was already moving towards her, and Ghost met him as Natalia fired another Bite at the Panther. “Что случилось?” **_What happened?_** His metal hand ghosted briefly over her waist as he fell into step with her.

Ghost thought of the name. _Aleksandrina._ It seemed like too much to share – too much for her to fully comprehend. A brother, a mother, a father, a great-niece – after so long as a single abnormality, it seemed fanciful. “Позже.” **_Later._** She told him, a flare of guilt turning her stomach as they strode up the ramp into the cockpit of the Quinjet.

* * *

Thankfully, the Captain knew how to pilot the Quinjet.

Though she or her partner would have been able to puzzle it out, it would have cost valuable time. With the Captain in the pilot’s seat, and her partner hovering at his shoulder, she allowed herself to take a momentary rest.

Her injured leg buckled beneath her, and she slid awkwardly down the side of the jet, catching herself with a faint hiss. She manoeuvred herself into a sitting position, stretching her still-bleeding calf before her, and finally, _finally_ catching her breath. She was exhausted. It had been some time since she had slept, and too long since she had allowed herself to take stock of her physical state. She was bruised from all her collisions with cement and metal, her calf was still dribbling blood onto the floor of the jet, and her vision was prickling at the edges with black – evidence of straining her abilities too far. Ghost eased off her boot, and reached for the hem of her jeans. Rolling them up caused the scabs that had formed to tear again, and fresh pain to lance up her leg. She bit down hard on her bottom lip to stop from crying out, and closed her eyes.

“ _-she alright?”_

She was dimly aware of hands on her exposed calf, cool metal and heated flesh alike. _James._ The Captain had spoken, and as she became more aware of herself, she realised she must have given in to unconsciousness. She sighed, and made to get up, opening her eyes to find her partner crouched over her. As she shifted, his eyes flew to hers. He gave her a half-smile, warmth in his eyes. “ _She’ll be alright._ Оставайся на месте.” ** _Stay still._** He spoke half to her, half to Steve, who was still in the pilot’s seat. In her periphery, she watched him cast her another nervous look over his shoulder. “ _She needs to rest.”_ James secured the bandage he had wrapped tightly around her wound, and gently eased her boot back onto her foot. “Восемь часов.” **_Eight hours._** He told her, and she felt the brief touch of his fingers to her lips, before she succumbed to darkness again.

* * *

She was unconscious again by the time he had finished doing her laces, and he reached out to gently adjust her head so that she was leaning against the smooth metal of a seat. He could feel Steve’s eyes on him, and stood to face him.

Steve looked away quickly once he realised he’d been caught, and he couldn’t help but chuckle slightly. Though it still felt strange to be with Steve again, a little difficult to equate the disjointed memories of a man he had once known with the man before him, there was less discomfort than he had expected. Though they had both changed, he was still able to recognise his old friend. He hoped Steve recognised him too. “She’s tougher than she looks.” He made his way back over to the co-pilot’s seat, settling behind Steve.

At this angle, he was able to see Steve’s disbelieving face. “She hardly looks…” He seemed unable to pick a word, almost nervous, “um, helpless.”

He turned again to look at his partner. He supposed, to a stranger, she did look somewhat terrifying, what with her height, scars and general paleness, plus the unnervingly blank look she defaulted too. All he saw now though, was her slim, delicate limbs, and the hidden vulnerability in her eyes. She was more porcelain doll than scary killer in his eyes. Bucky was sure strangers thought the same about him, just as he was sure Steve only saw his old friend. “I’d say she doesn’t bite, but…” He trailed off, holding back a laugh at the way Steve paled. “I’m _kidding,_ Stevie – Jeeze.” It slipped out, far too light, and far too casual, but Steve’s lip twitched, and the blond ducked his head.

“You and her…” Steve didn’t look at him, but Bucky had the feeling Steve was monitoring his reaction. “I couldn’t help but notice-”

“That we’re fucking?” He couldn’t resist – and as he expected, Steve turned a violent shade of pink. Bucky grinned briefly, satisfied. _Some things don’t change._

“Buck-” Steve sighed, and shook his head. “C’mon. Don’t be crass. Besides – I’ve never seen you _look_ at someone like that.”

At that, discomfort made his stomach turn. He swallowed down a reflexive response, a defensive retort that came from years of conditioning, and forced himself to be honest. Steve deserved honest. “It’s hard to help it.” He admitted, “I don’t- she was all I knew for a long time.” Steve was quiet, and Bucky watched the muscle in his jaw jump. “She’s never known anything but HYDRA. I’m still just relieved she wanted to know _me._ ”

“How long?”

Bucky couldn’t actually place the moment he had realised he needed her beyond their professional partnership. “Long enough.” He said finally. Steve nodded, and then was silent. In the quiet, Bucky stewed. “What’s going to happen to your friends?” Though they owed him nothing, though he had given them nothing but trouble, Steve’s teammates had rallied around him. He couldn’t help but feel guilty.

Steve sighed quietly, a broken sound. “Whatever it is, I’ll deal with it.”

“I don’t know if I’m worth all this, Steve.” He wasn’t innocent, and he wasn’t whole. Steve deserved better. He had found a place with his partner, his Ghost, who was just as fractured as him.

Steve almost turned to look at him. Bucky was glad he didn’t. He didn’t think he could stomach the weight of his old friend’s gaze, the weight of the emotion there. “What you did all those years…” Bucky braced for the judgement. Of course – it did not come. “It wasn’t you. You didn’t have a choice.”

A moment of hysteria nearly made him laugh. It both was and wasn’t – he had committed more sins than anyone person should, and though he had not been himself, it was still his hands drenched in red. He fixed his gaze on the white of the horizon. “I know.” It hurt to say, just as it hurt to deny it. He looked at Steve, at the sharp cut of his jaw and righteousness of his face. “But I did it.”

Steve twitched, something unnameable flitting across his face before he turned his own eyes to the sky ahead of them.


	17. Siberia, 2016

**June 25 th, 2016**

**Siberia, Russia**

* * *

“дух.” **_Ghost_** _._

“Сэр.” **_Sir._** She spoke before she was fully conscious, the cold and the stiffness of her body so reminiscent of her time in her cell, that it took her a moment to register her surroundings. Her partner said nothing, waiting until she had woken fully before he stretched out his hand.

They were in Russia.

She knew the cold intimately, could practically taste the years of stillness on the flurry of snowflakes that blew into the open hull of the Quinjet. She took her partner’s hand, and he hauled her upright, holding her for a moment as she gingerly put weight on her injured leg. Thankfully, it had healed enough to stand without debilitating pain. She’d put up with worse. She looked at her partner properly then, berating herself for leaving him alone for so long. Well – not technically _alone_ – but still. “Ты в порядке?” **_Are you alright?_**

He met her eyes unguardedly, but there was a faint haze over the silver of his irises that told her he was struggling to rise above the years they had spent here. She wondered what was tormenting him most – the pain and punishments, or the ice of cyrosleep; the memory of being suspended in endless darkness. He shrugged roughly, “Я буду в порядке, когда они умрут.” **_I'll be fine once they're dead._** He looked shiftily over his shoulder, a moment of guilt passing over his face. His reunion with Steve was clearly affecting him more than he was letting on.

She reached for him then, both to comfort him and to sate her own selfish desire to have him close, if just for a moment. “Мы в безопасности.” **_We’re secure._** She whispered, and cupped his cheeks between her palms. Despite the frigid wind, he was still warm. He bowed into her, hands squeezing a little too hard on her hips. She rested her forehead against his for a long moment, and breathed him in. A cold all of her own was beginning to descend upon her. She struggled to stay lucid, to keep warm. “Что ты собирался сказать?” **_What were you going to say?_** She asked, suddenly desperate for a distraction, despite the looming fight.

This close, the symmetrical planes of his face were all she could see, and she drank in his familiar features greedily. He was so beautiful it made her hurt a little. For a moment, she saw a naked desperation in his own eyes. He drew away from her, releasing her almost reluctantly. When he smiled, it didn’t touch his eyes. “I’ll tell you later.” He echoed her own words, and for a moment she was almost irritated by it. He seemed to notice, reaching out briefly to tap the tip of her nose playfully. “I promise, doll. Later.”

Neither of them voiced their looming reality – that there might not _be_ a later.

The Captain was waiting for them in the snow. He didn’t like the cold, she could see it in the tight set of his mouth, though he didn’t shiver. She wondered idly if like her, and her partner, the serum provided him with protection from the elements. She didn’t miss the way he looked between them, as if he could see the remnants of their hands upon each other. Her partner busied himself with his rifle. She watched his clever hands adjust the sight and the grip, and drummed her fingers briefly on the hilt of her knife.

“Ghost,” The Captain spoke almost tentatively, and she tried to soften her gaze before looking to him. He was looking at her as if sizing her up. “Will you be able to get us inside?” She inclined her head. She was still not fully recovered, but however long she had slept had allowed her to regain some of her strength. He nodded, more to himself, and turned to survey the white landscape. “Okay – well, lead the way.”

She had forgotten just how desolate the tundra was.

Her partner took point this time, and it was all too natural to fall in beside the Captain to flank him. The only sound as they marched towards the dark smudge of the base, was the crunch of fresh snow beneath their feet and the faint huff of their breathing, the Captain and her partner’s breath fogging in front of them.

When they reached the heavy cement of the base, they both stood aside for her. She could feel the Captain’s eyes on the side of her face as she approached.

When she got close enough, her heart sunk. Though she knew realistically they could not have beaten the Doctor to the base, seeing the doors already open awakened a new pit of despair inside of her. Without looking at the pair of them, she reached out to push the heavy door all the way open. She pretended not to hear the Captain’s low curse.

It was like stepping back in time.

It did not matter that the power was out, that dust and cobwebs covered much of the long winding halls – she could feel the echoes of the past with every step she took into the bowels of the place.

Her partner seemed just as uneasy, lingering in the space between her and the Captain, seemingly torn between shadowing the Captain in ancient muscle memory, or defaulting to cover her, as was their habit of seventy odd years.

She made his decision for him, phasing through him until she was between the two men, close enough to reach out to touch them both. The Captain threw her a brief look over his shoulder, though it was devoid of any discomfort or animosity. She felt her partner brush one hand briefly over the exposed skin of her neck before his rifle came up.

They had all grown silent as they descended into the base.

She kept her eyes on the small strip of skin she could see between the edge of the Captain’s helmet and his collar, and tried not to look at the halls and rooms where she had suffered and waited in endless stasis for an eternity. She tried not to listen to echoes of the past, the screaming of her partner, her own pain stored and reflected in the labyrinth. Her partner had drawn closer to her, so close she could feel his body heat at her back. The barrel of his rifle was jutting into her periphery, extending just to the left of her head, aimed into the uncertain darkness ahead of them.

They were approaching the cyrochambers when she heard it.

A distant clinking of metal, the sound of life where there should have been none. They were all on edge, all attuned to their surroundings, and so they moved as one. The Captain threw up his shield, her partner cocked his rifle, and instinctively, she reached back to grab a fistful of her partner’s vest, and curled her other hand over the Captain’s shoulder. Her heartbeat roared in her ears, though the world felt cold and slow, like glacial water.

The heavy blast doors opposite them creaked and shuddered, and she took a breath and readied herself.

“You ready?” The Captain’s voice was tight.

“Yeah.” Her partner pressed into her grip and lowered his eye to the scope of his rifle.

The glowing eyeholes and red metal that appeared in the crack of the door confused her enough that she froze. Iron Man. _Stark?_

The man in the suit of armour shouldered the door open the rest of the way, and stepped through. She shifted slightly, putting her foot on the stair above her, ready to bolt. His helmet retracted, and she was greeted with the sight of a blooming black eye on his aging, but still handsome face. She knew Stark from the media circus that always seemed to surround him, and she knew Iron Man as an enemy. The Captain’s shield wavered, and she tightened her grip upon him, a warning.

The Captain stepped out of her reach, and she clenched her jaw. _Stupid._ She thought, keeping her eyes on him as he slowly descended the stairs towards Stark. She trusted her partner to keep the gun trained on Stark.

“You seem a little defensive.” Stark’s voice was loud and obnoxious in the tense silence, and she twitched at the sound of it.

Steve nodded once, humourlessly. “It’s been a long day.”

“At ease, Rosenbergs.” It took her a moment to realise he was addressing them – his eyes slid over her face once before focussing on her partner. She was suddenly and viciously glad for the strangeness of her countenance. “I’m not currently after you.”

“Then why are you here?” The Captain spoke for them.

Stark shrugged with feigned casualness. “Could be your story’s not so crazy,” for once, there was no smugness in his tone, “Maybe.” He looked momentarily mutinous; clearly, admitting his error cost him. “Ross has no idea I’m here, I’d like to keep it that way.” He leaned, with that same artificial insouciance, against a supporting pillar. “Otherwise, I gotta arrest myself.”

The Captain’s shield wavered further still. It set her teeth on edge. “Well that sounds like a lot of paperwork.” Stark snorted, and the Captain lowered his shield. _No._ She didn’t like it. “It’s good to see you, Tony.”

“You too, Cap.” Stark sounded suddenly serious. Then he looked at them again, eyeing their defensive posture with condescending derision. “Hey, Manchurian Candidates, you’re killing me. There’s a truce here, you can drop it.”

It was only after the Captain raised a hand that her partner dropped his rifle. She straightened obediently, but kept her hand flat against her partner’s stomach, ready to pull them both into the Grey. She didn’t know Stark, didn’t trust him.

To her relief, Stark took point as they continued towards the cryochamber, and she was able to slip soundlessly to the rear, still with her hand on her partner. It was only adding to her stress; keeping one eye on Stark whilst still listening intently for sounds ahead of them. She was beginning to sweat despite the chill of the facility, and she could feel it trickling down her spine.

“I got heat signatures.” Stark’s metallic voice came quietly as he rounded the corner to the chamber. She took a breath and held it.

“How many?” The Captain asked, too loud for the atmosphere.

Stark sounded uncertain. “Uh, one.”

The high-ceilinged chamber was just as she remembered, walls with exposed piping that added to the industrial feel. The lighting was low, only a few sporadic patches of daylight filtering weakly through grimy skylights high on the walls. She frowned. The cryochambers should have been lit too – she remembered their yellow glow well, the way they turned her a sickly green when she stood before them. The hiss of hydraulics was also too low, and as she stepped into the room, she realised immediately what was wrong.

The yellow lights of the chambers flickered on as the Captain stepped in beside them, and her suspicions were confirmed.

“Они мертвы.” **_They’re dead._** Her whisper was hollow, and she watched her partner stiffen as he took in the lifeless forms lying limp within the cryochambers. From here, she could see the empty spot and spiderwebbing of cracks from the single bullet hole in each of the chambers. They had not suffered. She was almost sorry.

“ _If it’s any comfort,_ ” The voice that sounded, crackling, over the loudspeakers made her react reflexively. She and her partner phased from sight and touch. In the muted Grey, she caught her skipped breath. “ _They died in their sleep_.”

“Релиз.” **_Release._** Her partner muttered lowly, and though it pained her, she let him go. He raised his weapon again, senses fully restored and she fought to stop herself from reaching for him again.

The three men moved further into the room, her partner moving to investigate the closest Soldier, rifle still held aloft. She lingered by the door, alarm bells ringing louder and louder.

“ _Did you really think I wanted more of you?”_ It was said with derision. She searched the dark room for the source. “ _I’m grateful to them, though. They brought you here.”_ A small light flicked on at the opposite end of the hall, revealing man behind a small pane of glass. She did not recognise him, though she knew it was Zemo. The imposter.

She surged forwards before she could help herself, lips curling in an involuntary smile. Zemo looked right at her and smiled – and then her spine lit up in familiar debilitating agony.

She fell to the ground heavily, body seizing as electricity raced through her system. She flickered in and out of sight, crying out unhappily. Her partner had already turned to her, and through the haze clouding her eyesight, she watched the Captain launch his shield at Zemo. It resounded off the thick metal with a loud clang.

“Что я могу сделать?” **_What can I do?_** Her partner sounded desperate, dropping his rifle to reach for her. His hands went right through her; her implants making her abilities go haywire. Stark’s technology seemed to just shut her down – of course HYDRA’s machinations were meant to make her suffer.

Zemo lifted a small black device – a remote – and grinned. “ _Please, Captain_.” He laughed lightly, and the pain increased to the point that her vision whited out, and she lost all sensation. “ _The Soviets built this to withstand the launch blast of UR-100 rockets.”_ Just as suddenly, the charge stopped, and she fell limp. “ _The Soviets also distributed this little fail-safe against their second most dangerous threat. I wonder how many others have the key to stopping your little Ghost dead.”_

She rolled weakly to her side to look at him again. “I betting I could counter that.” Stark’s voice rang out. “Wouldn’t take me too long. And then you won’t be able to hide in a bunker.” At her pointed look, her partner picked up his rifle again.

“ _Oh, I’m sure you could, Mr. Stark.”_ Zemo sounded unconcerned and it made her hackles rise. Her limbs felt like jelly, but she forced herself to stand without help, inching away from her partner as he took a half-step towards her. She could not look weak. “ _Given some time_.” Her partner had prowled forwards again, and she shadowed him, taking a cautious step towards Zemo. Her implants remained blessedly dormant. “ _But then you’d never know why you came._ ”

“You killed innocent people in Vienna just to bring us here.” The Captain did not share her reserves. He strode forwards until he was less than a foot from Zemo. The other man stared hungrily at him through the thick glass of the bunker, and she frowned.

It wasn’t about them.

“ _I’ve thought about nothing else for over a year. I studied you. I followed you.”_

It was about Steve. And-

She looked at the red and gold suit of armour. Stark.

It was about Stark too. It was about _them_ , their legacy. The Avengers.

Zemo was fully engrossed in the Captain, and she took the opportunity to move closer again, muscles tensed, ready for pain. None came. “ _But now that you’re standing here, I just realised… there’s a bit a of green in the blue of your eyes. How nice to find a flaw_.”

A flaw. A flaw that Steve had and shared with Stark. And Zemo, who was- who was _Sokovian._

Ghost remembered with clarity the long winding exodus of the Sokovian natives, the exhausted broken faces of a people destroyed by a fight that should not have been theirs. The displacement and the death dealt had been immense. Dealt by _them_. By the Avengers. And Steve, and Stark – they were the faces, the leaders, the occult myth.

“You’re Sokovian.” She spoke before she considered her own words. She was suddenly desperate to stop it – to stop whatever machination that Zemo had put in place. They were playing right into his hands, she could sense it, though she had no idea what plans lay in store, what devastation would occur – only that it _would_ occur. “You are punishing them.”

Zemo looked at her again. They all did, Stark with a faint whir of mechanics, the Captain with a frown, and her partner with confused intensity.

Zemo shook his head slightly. “Sokovia was a failed state long before they blew it to hell. You should know – I have seen your handiwork in it’s political ruin.” She swallowed a lump of guilt. She _had_ been to Sokovia before, long before, and it would be a lie to say she did not do some of her own killing. “No. I am here because I made a promise.” So, it was not patriotism. She took another step closer. It had become all the more dangerous, because it was personal for Zemo.

“You lost someone.” The Captain had finally caught up, and though she could not see his face, she could see the way his shoulders bunched and tensed in anticipation.

Zemo’s stare grew glassy, though no tears fell. He was clearly past emotion. “I lost _everyone.”_ He nodded a little manically, “and so will _you._ ” Zemo reached down, and pressed something, and she flew forwards, darting for her partner.

Shuddering with adrenaline, she was taken aback by the screen that lit up. She had expected something else. Her partner had turned towards her in equal anticipation, but had stopped dead at the sight of the screen.

It was with a sinking feeling that she read the date on the top of the screen.

_December 16 th, 1991._

“An empire toppled by its enemies can rise again. But one which crumbles from within?” Zemo’s voice faded into a dull buzz, as a nauseating realisation dawned within her. “That’s dead.”

_The road. The car. The couple._

It was only now that she recognised them, that she _remembered_ the mission that they had buried so far within her that it had to be dragged out by this tiny, static filled video. Her partner had not looked long enough to register the date, but she had. _She had, and she knew._

She watched as Stark stepped towards the screen and recognised what was playing. A dull tolling, a funeral dirge, began to fill her head.

“I know that road. What is this?” He called to Zemo, as if the man would answer, and she swallowed down bile and reached for her partner slowly.

She could hear it; she could hear the sound of the engine. She knew that a crash would follow. A crash, and then cries for mercy. Mercy that was not given. “James.” She whispered to him, and he turned. Whatever he saw on her face must have frightened him because he was beside her in an instant, drawing Stark’s eyes.

The dark-haired man met her gaze. “What is this?” He asked again, voice breaking like a child’s cry. She looked away, and met her partner’s worried eyes.

“Декабрь. 1991 г.” **_December. 1991._ **She breathed, and for the first time in a long time, felt very, _very_ afraid.

She had told Wanda there was only one thing she was frightened of.

Losing her partner was the one thing. The only thing.

And now, in the wake of the revelation, with Stark so near, so vulnerable, so close to understanding, already primed for hatred – she was afraid. There was no telling what Stark would do. The Panther had come close to killing her partner already, and yet he had been crippled by the freshness of his loss. Stark’s wound was scarred over, and ripping it open now, revealing the terrible truth would only made him more rabid.

“Мы должны идти.” **_We have to go._** She tried to sound calm, tried to keep her voice level, but it wavered. Understanding, sick and raw, made her partner’s face drop. And yet he did not move. “James, Мы должны уйти. Сейчас.” **_We must leave. Now._**

Her partner was not looking at her anymore. He was looking at Stark. There was a dangerous resolution, a resignment to his gaze.

“ _Howard!”_ Maria cried for her husband, and Stark looked towards them with murder in his eyes. “ _Howard – please!”_ The woman wailed again, pain and confusion making her voice strained. And then, faintly, she heard Maria’s death rattle. She felt again, the hot slickness of the woman’s lifeblood on her hand, and sucked in a breath.

“Пожалуйста.” **_Please_**. Her voice was just as broken as Maria’s – and out of the corner of her eye, she watched Stark shudder violently. Her partner did not meet her eyes.

Stark lurched for them suddenly, and Steve grabbed him, catching him by the arm. She had already grasped her partner, pulling him into the Grey. For the first time ever – he shook her off, jarring her nearly healed wrist. “No, Tony-” Steve hissed, though his eyes were just as horrified. But devoid of surprise. _He knew._ Ghost felt her stomach drop in shock. Steve had known what they had done.

He had known and yet he had still thrown himself between them and Stark. _Selfish._ She realised. Steve was selfish enough to want Bucky, no matter what he had done to his supposed team, his chosen family. She marvelled at his devotion to her partner even as her gut churned with nausea.

Stark turned slowly back to Steve, and she watched him draw the same conclusion she had. “Did you know?” It sounded as if the words had been cut from him.

“I didn’t know it was them.” Steve was a bad liar.

Stark trembled again, “Don’t _bullshit_ me, Rogers – _did you know?”_ Stark snarled like a cornered animal, eyes wide and bulging with rage.

Still, her partner stood frozen.

They could all see it when Steve gave in to his own guilt. “Yes.”

The admittance made Stark lurch back from him as if burnt. For a long moment, Stark stared at the screen in front of him. And then he struck. He backhanded Steve with all his metal might, helmet sliding back into place as the Captain went rolling away with a pained grunt.

Stark fired at her with unerring speed, and she barely had time to phase out of being as the bright blasts of energy went through her. It was this that seemed to bring her partner back to life; he intercepted Stark as he raised his gauntlet again, and Stark blasted the rifle from his grip, and as James swung at his head, he caught his metal arm in his own steel grip.

For a moment they strained against the other’s strength, before Stark grabbed her partner by the throat with his other hand, and lifted from the ground. He flew a few feet with her partner, landing and slamming her partner into the ground, and lifting his gauntlet to his face. She bolted for them, throwing her only knife desperately at the joint of Stark’s elbow. It jolted his arm enough to displace the deadly blast to the left of her partner’s face, and Stark whirled, three small devices flying from a compartment on his shoulder.

They hit her with the another incapacitating pulse of electricity and brought her to her knees mid stride. Stark was in the air again, and she couldn’t do anything as the full weight of his metal suit bowled her over. She convulsed beneath him, eyes going wide as the bright white spot of his blaster filled her vision. This time, it was the Captain who deflected Stark’s blast, resounding his shield off Stark’s breastplate and sending him tumbling off of her.

Trembling, she reached for the knife that had fallen to the ground, and dug the tip between her skin and the little device that had attached itself to her chest. With a short whine, the device powered down, and she was able to regain some control of her limbs.

The Captain had been knocked off his feet again in her momentary distraction, heavy looking clamps fastening his two feet together as Stark grabbed her partner again. She panted, dropping to her knees beside him, and wrapping her fingers around the thick metal bands as he bucked against the restraints. From the other side of the room, she heard her partner grunt with effort, and she hissed out a similar sound as she exerted all of her strength.

The metal restraints gave way with a ping of metal, and she fell back as the Captain rose to his feet. He didn’t spare her a look as he raced towards where Stark had her partner pinned to the wall. As she rose again, she ripped at the other little device that had embedded itself in her upper thigh. The sharp sting as its prongs left her flesh barely registered, as a bright flash of flame exploded around the base of the cryochamber unit.

She swore in alarm, sprinting out of the way as the supporting pillar began to topple, the gas lines alighting and setting off a chain reaction. The Captain was leaping over a barricade, trying to make it to her partner and Stark before he was crushed beneath the pillar. Desperately, she lurched for him, phasing through the barricade, and reaching for him. _He wasn’t going to make it, she wasn’t going to-_

Her fingers closed around the nape of his neck and as the pillar descended upon them like the fire of heavenly retribution, she pulled them into the Grey. He let out a cry as if he had been punched, and she powered them through the confusing mess of flame and shrapnel.

Her partner rose unsteadily on the other side of the rubble, and she caught his eyes. “Go!” She barked at him, desperate and harsh enough to make him flinch.

“Get out of here – _both_ of you!” It was the Captain who bellowed the final order, and she stumbled unsteadily at his sudden push. She turned to look at him, at the desperation in his blue eyes, and tried to understand him. He blinked at her, and bared his teeth. She turned and ran after her partner.

A bolt of energy caught her shoulder as she scrambled around the corner, and she tripped over her own feet as she clutched at the sharp pain. Above her, the blast door had begun to open. Her partner stood at the control panel, one hand outstretched towards her, the other already reaching for the escape ladder before him. “Давай!” **_Come on!_**

He hauled her up bodily, half-tossing her onto the metal grating above him. She rolled to her feet, and jumped for the next level as her partner scrambled up beside him.

She felt like an animal again.

**_You forget yourself, dog. You forget your master._ **

Her breath sawed loudly in her throat, choked and almost like sobs. _Get out, get out, get out, get out, get out._ She felt unhinged, devolved. All she ever was, all she had been, was an animal. A creature of instinct and desperation. And she was on the run again. She was a rabid dog running from the gun.

_The gun she deserved._

And suddenly – fingers hooking into the grate above her, abdominals screaming as she hauled herself up – she understood the resignation on her partner’s face.

_Would it not be better to stop running? Would it not be better to answer for her sins? Would it not be just, poetic even, to meet her end at the hands of a hero?_

And yet the animal in her did not – could not stop. She ran, she ran though she was ashamed, and when her partner leapt above her, close to the light, so close to freedom, she felt a selfish surge of hope.

When the roof slammed shut again, she felt it resound through her. When Stark’s metal gauntlet fisted around the collar of her borrowed jacket, she did not fight the sudden shift in gravity as he ripped her from her grip on the ledge. When his arm came around her throat, when he whispered to her, she did not fight him. “Do you even remember them?” She thought she knew hate. Stark sounded somehow beyond the ugly emotion; driven so far into rage she did not think she even registered to him as anything more than a corpse waiting to happen.

But as his grip tightened on her throat, as her vision began to wobble and waver, she did not want to lie to him. “I remember all of them.” It came out choked and weak, and she felt tears cut a hot path down her cheek. Stark’s grip did not waver, and her world went dark.

She welcomed it.

* * *

The sudden influx of oxygen to her system made her gasp back into consciousness.

For a moment, she was _angry_. Angry that she had woken again, angry to be ripped from that peaceful darkness.

But then she registered the sound of her partner’s distress, and she rolled until she could see over the edge of the grating. Far below, she made out two forms, and for a moment sheer panic made her breath catch in her bruised throat. Then she made out her partner, dragging himself over the ledge just as she had – and she watched as he dropped down, further into the hell hole.

_Fuck._

She knew she couldn’t leave it, knew she couldn’t leave her partner. Her partner, who seemed determined to die by Steve’s side. She tried not to let it hurt her. Wheezing slightly – she suspected her trachea was quite damaged – she forced herself to move. If her partner wanted to die a martyr, then she would die with him.

The Captain and Stark were fighting again, though now, it seemed Stark had turned an equal ire towards the other man. Her partner moved with more urgency, and she spurred herself on, faster. _Focus. Push through the pain. There is nothing but the mission._

Now, it was necessary to draw upon the numbing cold that clouded her thoughts. It was mindless obedience that they had built within her, but it was also focus and drive, it was the complete lack of personal awareness. Emotion, pain – it was left behind.

She was a ghost. She was _the_ Ghost.

And when the Captain fell, and when her partner was forced to his knees, the glowing remnants of his arm sparking painfully, she did not look to them. She _could_ not look to them.

Ghost caught Stark’s swing with her left hand, slamming her forehead into the metal of his faceplate hard enough to make him stumble and make stars spark across her vision. But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. _There is nothing but the mission_. She phased, again and again and again, letting the blasts of Stark’s weapons go through her. And once his gauntlet sparked and went dark, she moved again.

She forced him back against the wall, just as her partner had, but this time when she reached for his glowing heart, she knew she could pluck the life from his breast. As she reached _into_ him, he reached for her with his dying suit, metal fingers clumsy against her throat, her neck. Ghost did not need to hold his heart till it stilled to kill him. Her fingers closed around the metal rim of his arc reactor, and his metal fingers clinked against her top most implant, and this close, she could hear his stuttered gasping as she began to crush the reactor as it sat within his chest.

Even as electricity began to flare, she willed herself to stay upright. Her body revolted against her, her tenuous hold on the Grey slipping as Stark activated the fail-safe HYDRA had put inside of her. She screamed with the effort of it, roaring into the blank metal of his red and gold mask, and tightening her grip.

The sudden, sharp pain that bloomed under her ribcage made her heart stutter. She-

She knew-

Ghost-

She looked down dazedly at her partner’s knife buried to the hilt in her side, still held in the grip of Stark’s dead gauntlet from where he had snatched it from her own holster.

It was-

_The mission. Nothing but-_

Red, dark and wet against the burgundy of the jacket, bloomed and spread.

She hadn’t realised she had stumbled back until a weak blast from his other hand made her fall. It jolted the knife in her side, and the ripping, tearing pain made her gasp.

Her partner was looking at her. Against the dark grey of the cement, his eyes seemed particularly bright. He was saying something, but her head was swimming and she couldn’t even be sure if he was speaking Russian or English. His eyebrows were rising, his mouth opening wide.

She remembered kissing him, and smiled.

He began to drag himself towards her, face screwing up in agony as the exposed wiring of the stump of his arm scraped against the concrete. She thought about him in Paris as light filled the space around them. Dimly, she knew that the Captain was still fighting.

She should be fighting still too. And yet she had been betrayed by her own body.

Her partner was close enough to touch, but she pillowed her head beneath her free hand and watched him. She had lost too much blood too quickly, and it was growing harder to draw breath as her throat swelled. It didn’t matter. _Nothing mattered but the mission._ If there was anyone else she trusted to protect her partner, it was the man still on his feet, still lifting his shield to defend them. James reached for her other hand where she was holding the hilt of the knife still buried in her side, and he was saying something again, feverish and too fast to follow. The low timbre of his voice buzzed pleasantly in her ears, and she smiled again.

Her partner was injured – but he would live.

And so, she could go without fear.

* * *

“That shield doesn’t belong to you.”

Steve adjusted Bucky slightly, and numbly eyed the blood pooling under the woman who had already been too pale to begin with.

“You don’t deserve it. My _father made that shield!”_

He had burned his bridges. He had turned his back on the world, on his friends.

Bucky groaned quietly, a half-whisper. “ _Please._ ” He was not looking at Steve, he was looking at Aleksandrina, at Ghost.

_And he would do it all again._

In the end, it was an easy choice.

He could not hold his shield _and_ the two assassins he had sacrificed everything for. Natasha deserved a happy ending too, and as he stooped slightly – leaving Bucky for a moment to sway on his own two feet – he couldn’t help but see his friend in her face. He dropped the shield with a clang, and gently eased his arm under the thin woman. If he couldn’t hear the concerning rattle of her shallow breath, he would have though she was dead already. He slung her over his shoulder as best as he could, body aching and begging for reprieve as he threw his other arm around Bucky’s shoulders. He could feel Aleksandrina’s blood soaking into his uniform, wetting his skin.

He was aware of Tony’s eyes on him, on the three of them.

He would feel the guilt soon, the remorse for what he had done to the man who _had_ been a friend too.

But right then, all he knew was exhaustion. All he knew was the painstaking drag of his feet as he carried them all from that hellish compound.

Steve left the shield, and he left Tony and he left the Avengers behind him.


	18. Wakanda, 2016

**Wakanda, Africa**

**July 29 th, 2016**

* * *

It was warm.

She registered that before anything else. For the first time in a long time, she was _warm._

Every other physical sensation took a little longer to come back to her. Her fingers danced over the soft coverlet that was drawn up to her chest, turned her cheek into the plushness of a pillow, caught the faint lush scent of greenery and rain.

Something a little like disappointment coloured her dull confusion – because if this was death, then there must be a catch. She should not be so comfortable. Slowly, hesitantly, she opened her eyes – half-expecting to see a shadowy figure awaiting her, ready to punish her, ready to cruelly rip her from this pleasant state.

The well-lit room took shape around her. The walls were industrial; smooth, clean metal lines, encasing and surrounding a myriad of screens alit with the latest in holo-technology. The ceiling was high, and the way the beams overlapped and climbed forced the eye upward, heavenwards. It tapered into a point, almost like a tent, but she did not linger on the practicalities of such architecture. No – her eyes had been caught by the view.

Directly opposite her bed – and it _was_ a bed, narrow but comfortable – a large window stretched most of the length of the room. And beyond-

_And beyond…_

She had never seen such a thing in her life.

The city seemed endless, and yet neatly contained. The buildings were marvels, smooth and sleek, and yet somehow reflective of the immense jungle that surrounded everything. There were _jets_ , flitting about, dancing with the occasional flock of bright tropical birds. Thin roads looped in impossible graceful shapes over and through the city, and the people were tiny pinpricks of jewel toned cloth. A large river wound its way through the city, glittering with equal intensity as the gold-toned glass on the outside of the buildings, and the landscape was dotted with the rich green of trees.

She moved on silent feet, slipping from the soft sheets, and padding to the window, drawn by fascination. She hovered there, a few centimetres from the glass, and watched. _What was this Utopia?_

“It’s really something, isn’t it?”

She startled, badly, whirling far quicker than she should have – her side alighting with pain. As she met the wide blue eyes of Steven Grant Rogers, the crushing weight of the last hours settled back into her consciousness with enough force to make her sway.

He was already on his way to her, hands outstretched with a now-familiar concern. She held up a hand, hissing a faint breath as she forced herself to stand straight. “James.” She cursed herself for her inattention, and then a sickening fear made her stomach roil. She stared at Steve, who had paused midstride. “Is he-?” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the question.

Steve blinked at her for a moment. “Wh- oh- Oh! No! No, he’s alright. Well. Mostly-”

“Take me to him.” She demanded, interrupting his rambling. Mostly. She could work with mostly. Who knew how much time they had before Stark and his minions were upon them. She could walk, which meant she could run – and they would need to run if they wanted to escape. “How long have we been… _here?_ ”

Steve had made no move to lead her where she wanted to go, and she held back a curse at his slowness. _They needed to go-_ “We’ve been in Wakanda for three days now.”

Wakanda-

_Three days-_

She drew herself up short, shaking her head. That was… “ _Impossible…_ ” she breathed, turning to look back at the beautiful city. In the dim reflection of herself in the glass, she lifted the white shift she was wearing to expose the site of her wound. It was covered by a thin bandage, and she ripped it off impatiently. There was no sign of a healing, crusting stab wound – just a thin, angry pink looking line. Gingerly, she touched the still-healing scar. It was tender to the touch. “Impossible.” She repeated. “Wakanda is an undeveloped county in East Africa. Not, not,” She gestured hopelessly at the architectural and natural wonder before them.

Steve huffed a laugh. “That’s what I said.” He moved again, this time with purpose, and she watched his approach in the glass. He settled beside her. “I know you might not believe it, but we’re safe here. King T’Challa has offered you and Bucky sanctuary. Nothing can get through their borders.”

When she looked at him, he was looking at her. There was a tremulous _something_ swirling in his eyes. She couldn’t remember much after she had fallen in Siberia, but she had the oddest sensory snatch of the scent of his blood and sweat, the hard line of his shoulder carrying her up and away- She clenched her jaw and extended her hand. “Thank you, Steven.” Her voice shook with the weight of her gratitude, and he took her hand with equal gravity. “I will repay your sacrifice.” She bowed her head low over their connected hands and hoped he knew that she meant it.

“Oh, now. That’s-” he sounded supremely uncomfortable, and she was unsurprised when he withdrew his hand from hers in favour of patting her gingerly on the shoulder. “Let’s- do you want to go see him?”

She straightened. Of course, she did.

* * *

He saw Steve first, and smiled, because that was what he had been doing whenever he saw his friend – mostly to reassure the other man – and then she stepped through the wide double doors, and he felt it slip from his face.

When he was not occupied by the young girl’s endless tests, he had kept vigil by her bedside. The doctors had said she was lucky, that so much blood-loss paired with her over-exertion should have killed her. It had somewhat soured the hours he spent beside her; she looked past life lying there, too pale and too thin and far too still.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the way she had smiled at him, the way life had leeched from her eyes, and the way she had seemed so happy about it.

He hadn’t realised he had risen until she was close enough to him that he could see the frost of her lashes and the silvery-raised lines of the scars at her temple. There was a hush over the room, though he wasn’t sure how much was his imagination and how much was the medical staff and Steve trying to be quiet. She was looking him over, working her way from his feet to his face, and he watched the way her eyes lingered on the bound stump of his left arm. It had finally stopped hurting; the girl had finished her careful surgical exploration of the connection site, removed the last of the wiring connecting flesh to machine. Still – he shifted self-consciously – he was a cripple now. At his movement, her eyes darted to his, and he wasn’t fast enough to hide his expression.

Her face was as it normally was, cold and unreadable, but her eyes sparked with a warmth he knew and craved.

They moved together, in natural harmony still, and it felt so _good_ to sway into her, to curl his one arm gently around her rib-cage, to have her hands skate over his chest and shoulder, to clutch at the base of his skull and hold him. She twitched slightly when he ran his finger over the place he had watched his knife disappear, and he swallowed thickly at the memory.

They were so close that he could feel her lips move against his throat when she spoke. “Мы в безопасности.”

They were secure now. _For now._ He amended, unable to help but think about the future, about the endless list of people with vendettas, the shadows of a past that still sought to carry them back into darkness.

And he was suddenly furious at the thought of it.

He held her a little tighter, felt the natural and unnatural knobs of her spine and implants, and breathed in her cool scent. “I have something I need you to know.”

James – Sergeant, Soldier, Bucky – did not expect anything in return. But he was tired of pretending that he didn’t need her as much as he did, and he was tired of not saying it.

She did not speak, but he felt her fingers rub a soothing pattern into the nape of his neck.

“I love you.” He told her, so quietly that the words were for them alone, quiet like the very first time they had admitted such dangerous emotion – a world away this time, and years apart. “Я люблю тебя.” He repeated himself.

She was very still and though he had told himself he wouldn’t care what her response was, it still made his chest tighten. And then she took a shuddering breath. “Say it again.”

“Волим те. Je t'aime. Volim te. Te amo. Ti amo. Seni seviyorum. I love you, I love you, I love you,” It came out a shivering rush, and she was shaking, but not with tears, but with laughter. He couldn’t help but smile too and duck his head so that they were eye to eye again. She was so beautiful when she smiled. He told her, whispered it into the space between their lips. She kissed him hard enough to hurt, and when they parted and he got his breath back, he started all over again.

He knew a lot of languages, but he was ready and willing to tell her in every way he could.

* * *

It was late when Steve came to her again.

Her partner was asleep in the cot beside her own – the medical staff were reluctant to release either of them from the Care Unit, and so this had been to compromise. Her partner had told her briefly about the surgeries undertaken by the youngest doctor he’d seen, and the de-programming he had begun. It was clearly more tiring than he admitted; he had passed out near immediately after the lights had been turned off, and even her own movements around the room had not roused him.

She was by the window again when Steve appeared. He came to stand beside her, the blue and gold lights making him look like a piece of Impressionist art. She caught the edge of that almost guilty look again, and waited. He did not speak for a very long time, long enough that she thought he must have lost his nerve.

“Are you in much pain?” He asked finally, voice polite and gently curious.

“No.” She answered truthfully. There was a little restriction in how far she could twist her torso, and moving too quickly made her side ache, but there was no pain she couldn’t handle. He nodded, shifting. He had his fingers interlaced behind his back, and they were twisting nervously. “Steven,” she began, as delicately as she could, “what I said earlier, I meant it.”

He looked guilty again. “You’ve only just woken, and you’re still healing. Besides – it’s dangerous to leave at the moment, you’re-”

She interrupted his pre-emptive excuses. “Ask me, Captain.” She turned to him, and forced him to meet her gaze. “What would you have me do?”

He swallowed visibly, and cast a look over his shoulder at her partner, still sleeping – blissfully unaware. “The others…” He looked pained, “they’re in prison because of me. I can’t leave them there.” There was a faint note of pleading in his voice.

Ghost felt a distant thrill of anticipation. “Then we will go and collect them.”

Steve smiled slowly, gratefully.

* * *

**July 31 st, 2016**

**The Raft, UNKNOWN**

* * *

It was different to working with her partner.

The Captain was equal parts less subtle and less aggressive than the Soldier. At first, it was clear he was mourning the loss of his shield – he seemed unsuited, unused to combat without it, and she found herself shadowing him far closer than she ever would her partner, in order to pull him out of mortal danger when he forgot himself.

They fell into a better rhythm as they approached the bowels of the Raft. Though she had not been to the prison before, there was something intrinsically familiar about the artificial light and ever-present dark, the rows of hard, cold cells, and the men willing to kill in the name of order. She did not deny herself the satisfaction of putting them out of commission.

Ahead of her, the Captain was engaged with the final guard occupying the post in front of the large blast doors that sequestered the high-security prisoners from the others. They had paused at a control centre to find the people they were after, and seeing Wanda in chains had leant them both an unspoken urgency. _She was just a child…_

She let the man she was holding fall to the ground in a heap, the thud of his body against the floor drawing the Captain’s attention. His own opponent was similarly prone; half-slumped against the door.

“After you,” the Captain said, stepping aside for her.

She phased through the heavy doors, holding herself in the Grey as one of the three guardsmen begun another loop of the circular room. There was no privacy in here, the bright fluorescent lights painting the scene in vivid clarity. She spared the prisoners brief looks; all of them in various stages of repose in blue jumpsuits. Only one was up and pacing; Wilson, in the smallest and most central cell. He was uncowed by one of the guards sneering something at him, gazing _through_ the man as if he wasn’t even there.

Ghost turned, and hit the lights.

The room descended into darkness, lit only by the internal lights of the cells, and so she had a perfect view of the way Wilson’s eyes went round and surprised as the guardsmen began to drop. She supposed it would look strange to the uninitiated, but already Wilson was searching the empty air for her, coming quite close to her position a few times.

The last man standing was reaching for his belt, for the communications unit there, and she dove for him. They went thudding into the bars of Wilson’s cell, and she slipped from the Grey. The guardsman screamed at the sight of her, trying to wrestle his gun from his hip, but she was far stronger and far faster, and wrapped her fingers near lovingly around his throat and squeezed the sound and breath from him. When he fell unconscious, she released him, and he dropped like a stone.

When she looked back at Wilson, he was… _smiling._

It surprised her into smiling back, and though the gesture was probably a little frightening, his expression didn’t change.

“Guess it’s your turn, then.” He said, as she reached for the control panel. “I promise you can trust me.” He was joking, but she wasn’t.

“I know I can.” She told him seriously, and stepped aside as the Captain entered the room. Wilson’s smile only grew, and she moved to the other cells as the Captain and Wilson met in the centre of the room.

Barton gave her a serious nod, pausing in his cell to collect something from beneath his bunk. She almost laughed at the sight of the shiv he had somehow managed to fashion. Lang gave a loud cry of joy, and reached for her hand to shake it vigorously.

It was Wanda, however, that surprised her the most.

“Wanda,” She crouched before the girl, who was not looking at her, who was not looking at anything. The small collar around her neck blinked with a red light, and she reached for it. Wanda jerked back violently, throwing herself out of reach.

“Leave me here.” Wanda’s voice was croaky with disuse, and her eyes were dim. “I am a danger.”

Ghost pursed her lips, and moved closer to the girl. Wanda’s lips were trembling, but she was still very pointedly looking over her shoulder. “ _Little one,”_ Ghost spoke in Sokovian, and reached for her again, this time to cradle her cheeks between her palms, and force Wanda’s eyes to meet her own. “ _You are no danger to me. Won’t you let me help you?”_ Instinct she didn’t recognise drove her to smooth her thumbs over the girl’s cheeks, and brush back a few greasy strands of hair from her face.

All at once, as if she had been keeping it in, Wanda began to cry. She did not sob, she did not wail, but tears ran down her face and pain crumpled her features. Ghost’s heart ached. Wanda buckled slightly, folding towards her, held taunt by the heavy straitjacket. Ghost moved for her, awkwardly curling herself around the smaller, younger woman, and hiding her face. As Wanda cried against her, she ran her fingers down the fastenings of the jacket, and snapped the clasp of the collar. The faint noise made the girl stiffen, as if bracing for a blow. Ghost stilled with her. After a long moment, she drew back from the girl, taking the collar with her. Wanda’s face was blotchy, eyes wide and fearful. Ghost offered her a smile. “You see? No danger.”

A faint spark of red lit up the dark blue of Wanda’s irises, and the girl shuddered, something like bliss and relief flitting across her features. “ _Thank you._ ” She whispered, and Ghost shook her head.

“Come now.”

She offered her hand to the girl, and Wanda curled her fingers around her own. Red magic danced across their point of connection, and Wanda blushed suddenly, embarrassed. Ghost just smiled.

Freedom was in reach, and though she might not have deserved it, she would turn her face into the sun.


	19. EPILOGUE: Casting Out Shadows

“ _Again! Again! Again!”_

She was sweating a little – still unused to the Wakandan sun – and she dabbed lightly at her brow as she straightened. Her tiny audience were not so impeded, jumping with a simple joy for her simple tricks.

She was no gymnast, but apparently the flips and spins she executed as part of her combative style were enough entertainment for the children that inexplicably followed her around the little farmstead that she called home. “I am tired, children. Besides, you cannot possibly want to see it again.” She tried to keep her voice light. She did not want to frighten them. “How about some magic instead?”

They were easily placated, and she let them tug her by the arms and legs, little fists in her loose clothing, tiny fingers wrapped around her own. She marvelled at them, at the tiny delicacy of their features, at all their exuberant joy. She had not beheld children so closely before, and though the mothers and fathers of the little tykes apologized endlessly for their behaviour, she remained as enamoured with them, as they appeared to be with her.

“Aleks!” She straightened at the familiar voice calling a still unfamiliar name. _Aleks. Aleksandrina Romanov._ It still sat strangely, after so long anonymous, after so long playing at being a ghost, she was unused to the name.

Natalia was standing in the doorway to their small cottage, and even from where she stood, Aleks could see the amusement on the younger woman’s face. She took note of the sun’s low saddle on the horizon and pursed her lips. “We’ll save it for tomorrow, I think.” There was a loud chorus of despair, and the youngest of the gang – Xani, five years old and chubby cheeked and bright-eyed – screwed up her face in a way Aleks had learnt meant a tantrum was about to kick off. Swiftly, she scooped the small girl from the ground, swinging her up high and fast enough to freeze the cry in her throat. She squealed with delight instead, and when Aleks balanced her on her hip, buried her sticky hands into the tangle of braids at the nape of her neck. Aleks ignored the faint tug, and reached out to Molla, the eldest and tallest. She pinched lightly at his cheek. “Will you take the others home? I know I can trust you, Molla.”

As always, the expression of authority made the boy puff his chest out. “Of course, Miss Aleks!” He stomped his foot once and began to click at the others. “Come on! Come on, now!”

Aleks pressed a gentle kiss to Xani’s brow, and began to lower her to the ground again. Xani’s hands tightened on her braids again – put there and styled by the children – and she began to whimper. “Come, Xani.” Aleks sighed, “You will see me tomorrow, and then the day after.”

“And after that?” Xani chirped, wobbling her bottom lip.

Aleks couldn’t help but smile. “Yes. After that, too.” Finally, she was able to relinquish Xani to her elder sister’s hold, patting them both on the head. The rabble began to gallop back towards the city and palace, joy restored once more. “Straight home!” She called after them, as she always did. A few of the children turned to wave at her again before they disappeared over the hill. She waved back until she couldn’t see them any more.

“You should start charging for baby-sitting.” Her great-niece’s voice was coloured with barely concealed amusement. Aleks’ lips twitched when Natalia nudged her slightly. “Come on. Dinner’s ready.”

She trailed after her old pupil, lingering in the last vestiges of the sunlight. Life was easy here, easier than she deserved.

The smell of whatever was on the stove came twisting from the open door of her little hut and she ducked inside, choosing to leave the door open. Inside, Natalia had returned to the stove, already bickering lightly with Sam over the seasoning. She could smell peppers and paprika and fish – something creole then, warming and filling. Steve was setting the table for them, the domestic act still looking absurd to her; his broad frame filling the space, large hands making the cutlery look like plastic. At her entrance, he looked up and smiled.

She smiled back – a reflex now. She and Steve had grown closer over the last few months; during the long hours of solitude she had endured whilst her partner underwent procedure after procedure, Steve had often wound up by her side. There were still shadows between them, things unspoken, memories and deeds too dark to bring up casually – but Aleks thought him an ally, and perhaps, a tentative friend.

“Darlin’.” Her partner’s voice was still a little hoarse – she guessed he had not spoken much today, if at all. She turned to meet his eyes where he sat in their only armchair. She searched his face for a moment longer, taking in the exhaustion and haunted look in his eyes. But there was no ice, no steel there. Unguarded, he watched her back, and when she moved towards him, he reached out and snagged the hem of her shirt with his one hand. It still threw them both a little off balance – her partner was still adjusting to using one limb. She folded into him, and he brushed his cheek against hers. Then he laughed quietly.

She raised a brow, questioning, chiding. He shook his head and pressed a gentle kiss to her temple. “You must have caught the sun – you’re warmer than I am.”

Aleks glanced around the room, glad that no one seemed to be paying them any attention. She drew him in and kissed him greedily. He sighed as she pulled back. “Impossible, my любить.” **_Love._**

All was well.


End file.
